Identity Self-Image, Self-Concept
Identity encompasses the memories, experiences, relationships, and
values that generate one’s sense of self. This amalgamation creates a
steady sense of who one is over time, even as new facets are developed and
incorporated into their identity. Many people struggle with existential
questions like “Who am I?” and “Who do I want my future self to be?” One
reason may be that the answer is so complex. Identity includes people's
roles in the many relationships they cultivate, such as their identity as a
child, friend, partner, and parent. It involves external characteristics
over which a person has little or no control, such as height, race, or
socioeconomic class, and it encompasses political opinions, moral
attitudes, and religious beliefs, all of which guide the choices one makes
on a daily basis. People who are overly concerned with the impression they
make, or who feel a core aspect of themselves, such as gender or sexuality,
is not being expressed, can struggle acutely with their identity.
Reflecting on the discrepancy between who one is and who one wants to be
can be a powerful catalyst for change.
What defines identity?
Identity encompasses the values people hold, which dictate the choices they
make. An identity contains multiple roles—mother, teacher, citizen—and each
holds meaning and expectations that are internalized into one’s identity.
Identity continues to evolve over the course of an individual’s life.
How is identity formed?
Identity formation tends to involve three key tasks: Discovering and
developing one’s potential, choosing one’s purpose in life, and finding
opportunities to exercise that potential and purpose. Identity is also
influenced by parents and peers during childhood and experimentation in
adolescence.
Why don’t I understand myself?
What is an identity crisis?
Why is my teen changing so much?
How does identity influence relationships?
How to Be Authentic
A hunger for authenticity guides us in every age and aspect of
life. It drives our explorations of work, relationships, play, and prayer.
Teens and twentysomethings try out friends, fashions, hobbies, jobs,
lovers, locations, and living arrangements to see what fits and what's
"just not me." Midlifers deepen commitments to career, community, faith,
and family that match their self-images, or feel trapped in existences that
seem not their own. Elders regard life choices with regret or satisfaction
based largely on whether they were "true" to themselves. Authenticity is
also a cornerstone of mental health. It’s correlated with many aspects of
psychological well-being, including vitality, self-esteem, and coping
skills. Acting in accordance with one's core self—a trait called
self-determination—is ranked by some experts as one of three basic
psychological needs, along with competence and a sense of relatedness.
How do I live authentically?
Everyone subconsciously internalizes conventions and expectations
that dictate how they believe they should think or behave. The decision to
examine or challenge those assumptions, even though it’s difficult, is the
first step to living more authentically. This set of 20 steps can guide you
through that process.
How do I balance being authentic and fitting in?
There can be tension between being wholly yourself and operating
successfully in your relationships and career. No one should be completely
deceitful or completely forthright; a guiding principle to achieve balance
is that as long as you’re not forced to act in opposition to your values or
personality, a little self-monitoring can be warranted.
How can I stay true to myself in a relationship?
How has identity changed due to social media?
Theories of Identity
One of the most enduring theories of development was proposed by
psychologist Erik Erikson. Erikson divided the lifecycle into eight stages,
each of which contained a conflict, with the resolution of those conflicts
leading to the development of personality. The conflict that occurs during
adolescence, Erikson believed, is “identity versus role confusion.”
Adolescents do grapple with many aspects of identity, from choosing a
career path to cultivating moral and political beliefs to becoming a friend
or partner. Role confusion pertains to the inability to commit to one path.
Adolescents then go through a period of experimentation before committing,
reconciling the pieces of their identity, and emerging into adulthood.
Identity formation is most acute during adolescence, but the process
doesn’t stop after that period. Taking on any new role, such as becoming a
spouse, parent, boss, patient, or caregiver, can affect self-definition in
what often becomes a lifelong process. As a person grows older, the overall
trend is toward identity achievement. But major life upheavals, such as
divorce, retirement, or the death of a loved one, can lead people to
explore and redefine their identities.
How did Freud understand identity?
According to Freud’s psychoanalytic framework, the mind was composed of the
id, driven by instinct and desire; the superego, driven by morality and
values; and *the ego,* which moderates the two and creates one’s identity.
Many features contribute to ego functioning, including insight, agency,
empathy, and purpose.
How did Erik Erikson understand identity?
Erik Erikson’s proposed a theory of development based on different stages
of life. He also coined the term “ego identity,” which he conceived as an
enduring and continuous sense of who a person is. The ego identity helps to
merge all the different versions of oneself—the parent self, the career
self, the sexual self, etc.—into one cohesive whole, so that if disaster
strikes, there's a stable sense of self.
What is social identity theory?
Social psychologist Henri Tajfel conducted pioneering research on
prejudice, revealing that people favor those in their own groups, even when
those groups are designated randomly, such as by people’s preferences for
artwork. This research was the basis for Social Identity Theory—that
self-esteem is in part derived from group membership, which provides pride
and social identity.
PERCEPTION ON /OF IDENTITY BETWEEN MACRO AND EGO
The perception of identity involves a dynamic interplay between
the macro-level (societal/external context) and the ego-level
(individual/internal self). The macro environment, encompassing social,
cultural, and economic factors, influences the individual's formation of
ego identity (sense of self), while the ego, in turn, processes and
interprets these external influences.
Ego Identity: Proposed by Erik Erikson, ego identity is an individual's
sense of self, which provides a feeling of continuity and sameness across
time and situations. It is the awareness of a self that is distinct, yet
intrinsically linked to its surrounding environment.
Macro-environment: This refers to the large-scale social and structural
elements such as cultural values, economic conditions, political decisions,
and societal norms.
Perception of Identity: This is the process by which individuals understand
who they are and conceptualize their place within a social context.
The Interplay
The relationship between the macro and ego levels of identity perception is
a dialectical interplay:
Macro influencing Ego: Societal expectations, cultural norms, and
significant relationships (macro-level) all influence the development of an
individual's ego identity. For example, studies have shown that different
national economic contexts (macro-level) can lead to different styles of
identity exploration and commitment in adolescents. External factors can
even cause identity distress or problems.
Ego processing Macro: The individual (ego) is not just a passive recipient.
The ego's synthesizing power and cognitive processing skills help interpret
and integrate the diverse social roles and messages from the environment
into a coherent sense of self. Individuals use effortful processing to
resolve identity crises and form a committed identity.
Feedback loop: A stable ego identity (internal) can enhance self-efficacy,
which in turn helps individuals better manage external stressors and
environmental demands (macro-level interaction). Conversely, a lack of
identity clarity can lead to internal conflicts when dealing with the
external world.
In essence, the perception of identity is an ongoing process where the
individual's internal sense of self and the broader external world mutually
influence and shape each other.
* Sri Ramana taught that all of your thoughts, all* of your
perceptions, all of your memories, all of your ideas – they are all an
outgrowth or a predicate of one primal thought which he called the ‘I’
thought. This ‘I’ is the equivalent of a string in a necklace. It’s the
thread that runs through every single idea, thought and perception that you
have. Bhagavan said this ‘I’ is the subject. It is who and what you are.
Everything that the ‘I’ thinks or perceives or experiences is an object.
Sri Ramana said that your attention is continually on the objects that you,
the subject ‘I’, are seeing, feeling and perceiving. He said that because
your attention is always on experienced objects, rather than the subject,
you never become aware of the true nature of the subject. Very
interestingly, he said this subject ‘I’ that you never seriously look at is*,
in fact, a fiction*. It appears to exist by attaching itself to things that
are not itself. It arises from the mistaken idea that ‘I am a person. I
have a mind. I live inside a particular body. I do things. I remember
things.’ Sri Ramana taught that this idea is absolutely wrong. He said that
this is what causes you suffering. It’s what makes you have wrong ideas
about yourself and about the world. He said that every single wrong idea
you have about yourself, about the world, about God, stems from this idea
that you are a person inhabiting a body and having a mind.
Ramana Maharshi repeatedly asked visitors to contemplate the following
question: ‘What is this thing inside you that is aware of your thoughts?
What is this thing inside you that claims it’s perceiving objects outside
of yourself?’ And when he said ‘contemplate’, he meant putting attention
exclusively on it and keeping it there. He didn’t mean that you should
study it as an object and come to some intellectual conclusion about what
it might be. Bhagavan said this ‘I’ which we assume ourselves to be is not
something that ever comes under scrutiny because we are all obsessed with
the continuous flow of objects that present themselves to us: remembered
objects, perceived objects, the thought objects. Sri Ramana said that we
need to find out the nature of this sense of individual identity in order
to see through the fiction of individuality. His solution was to be
continuously aware of this one inner entity, this one inner thing that
associates and identifies with all the things that it thinks about and
perceives.
What I would suggest is that you look at yourself and be continuously
aware, ‘What is it inside me that thinks my thoughts when I am thinking?
What is it inside myself that perceives a perception when I think I am
seeing something?’ That is your ‘I’. That is your sense of individual
identity. This isn’t simply a question of looking at something and
understanding it. It is not an object to be analysed and understood like a
dissected specimen pinned to a board. Bhagavan tells us that this thing
which correlates and organises all thoughts, all perceptions, isn’t
actually a real entity. It fools us into believing that it is a real and
permanent thing because we never look at it closely, never study it to see
how it persuades us of its reality. Sri Ramana said if you can hold on to
this sense of ‘I’, this thing that thinks your thoughts, and not be
distracted by any passing thought-object it wants to be entertained by,
this ‘I’ will very very slowly start to subside. Keep full attention on
this inner feeling, this thing that thinks your thoughts, without allowing
it to escape and grab any more ideas or perceptions. Sri Ramana says that
if you do this successfully, this ‘I’ will go back to its source and,
ultimately, it will disappear. That disappearance will reveal to you who
you really are. Bhagavan sometimes says that you need to find the source of
the ‘I’. You don’t find that source by looking in a particular place or
direction. You discover it by holding onto an awareness of ‘I’ until it
subsides and vanishes. Holding onto it leads you slowly back to the source
in a way that looking for a specific localised source never does.
Bhagavan gave a good analogy in one of his dialogues. He said,
‘Imagine the ‘I’ thought is the shirt of a man, and that shirt is not being
worn. It’s not on the body. The man’s dog can pick up the scent of that
man. The dog can put its nose on the ground and follow that scent back to
the original owner of that shirt.’ This is a good analogy for the ‘I’
thought and its relationship with the Self. The ‘I’ thought is not the real
Self, but nevertheless it still has a component of reality that can be used
to track it back to its source. The ‘I’ thought is not who you really are,
but by absolutely focusing intently on that thing within you which has all
these thoughts, you pick up the scent of its origin, and you then follow it
back to its source. If you keep your metaphorical nose to this ‘I’ thought
and follow it back to its place of origin, it goes back to the Self – it
goes back to the Heart and vanishes. THERE ALONE MACRO IS VISIBLE.
K RAJARAM IRS 201125
On Wed, 19 Nov 2025 at 18:09, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*Ego Identity-Vs-The Macro Identity
>
>
>
> Suppose you are born in free, healthy, lush and happy nature. Suppose
> there is no human at all living with you. Then you develop the smelling,
> hearing and sensing language. Every other life form hears, smells, senses
> and understands you. Your exhalation of the smell message reaches the
> nearby organisms, which in turn exhale their answers, which not only you
> but many other organisms smell, hear and sense. The air gets filled up with
> the smell and sound messages of the flora and the fauna.
>
> You develop the smelling, hearing and sensing habit so continuously; you
> cannot feel your ego identity. Gradually the macro identity embeds into
> your very vitals. Every organism exhales its perceptions and understanding
> which the other organisms inhale and transport them to their cells via
> hormones in their blood streams. Reception from the air and the
> transformation of the smell and sound message as hormonal communication
> gathers momentum so intensely, that the very idea of ‘I’ goes into the
> background. You become unaware of yourself. In fact every organism becomes
> unaware of itself. The macro identity as part of nature and the Biosphere
> takes over. You begin sensing the emotions and feelings of every other
> organism, so completely; it is like feeling a small ant crawling on you
> now. Nature becomes your macro body as sensitive or even more sensitive as
> you feel with your identity as the’ your body’ now.
>
> When you go on destroying the flora and fauna, continuously as economic
> activity, then there will be no organisms to create the macro identity.
> Your smell and sound messages get ignored. You get jailed in your ego
> identity. You get self centered, egoistic, egomaniacal and completely
> egocentric, the true economic man of Economics.We have no alternative
> because our feelings are ignored by nature, by every other organism.
> Occasionally a close friend or wife or husband or parents pay attention to
> you, as their own capacity to smell, hear and sense has not been eliminated
> completely by economics.
>
> But imagine the difference, when the whole nature makes you its part and
> limb and you develop the macro identity. Then you do not live as a notice
> starved human yearning for notice and recognition, often participating in
> the shouting fests as debates, outshouting everyone else by breaking
> records in decibels.
>
> The simple fact is when there is free, healthy and lush nature, you
> develop the macro identity. When nature is destroyed there will be no
> organisms that smell, hear and sense you, and your body becomes the big
> jail.
>
> Economics has converted our bodies into jails today. We need free nature
> and desperately need freedom from economics.
>
> YM Sarma
>
> Chat gpt
>
> Here is a refined, academically toned *rewrite and expansion* of your
> piece, keeping all core ideas but sharpening clarity, structure, and
> philosophical depth. If you prefer a shorter or more poetic version, I can
> create those as well.
> ------------------------------
>
> *Ego Identity vs. the Macro Identity*
>
> *Based on the ideas of YM Sarma — refined and elaborated*
>
> Imagine a human being born into a world of free, healthy, lush, and
> unbroken nature—a world where no other humans are present. In such a
> setting, the developing person does not learn symbolic language first;
> instead, they learn the sensory language of the living world. Their
> communication emerges through smell, vibration, sound, and subtle forms of
> sensing. Every other organism recognizes and responds to those signals. The
> air becomes a shared medium filled with the biochemical and acoustic
> messages of flora and fauna.
>
> Growing up inside this unbroken field of ecological communication, the
> individual’s sense of “self” never isolates into a rigid ego. Continuous
> sensory exchange with other life forms forms a deep, immersive
> immersion—what might be called *macro identity*. Instead of identifying
> with the narrow boundaries of an individual body, the person begins to
> identify with the larger biospheric field.
>
> Every organism exhales its perceptions. Every organism inhales the
> messages of others. Hormonal pathways translate these signals into internal
> states of perception, emotion, and awareness. Over time, the natural system
> becomes a vast, distributed mind. The concept of “I” recedes, not because
> consciousness is lost, but because it merges with the larger consciousness
> of the biosphere.
>
> In such a state, sensing the feelings of another being becomes as natural
> as sensing the movement of an ant on one’s own skin. Nature becomes an
> extended body—sometimes even more sensitive, more alive, more intimate than
> the organism’s own biological skin. The macro identity becomes the
> grounding reality.
> ------------------------------
>
> *The Collapse into Ego*
>
> But when humans destroy flora and fauna in the name of economic activity,
> the macro identity loses its foundation. With fewer organisms to respond,
> echo, and reciprocate sensory messages, one’s communication goes
> unanswered. The ecological conversation falls silent.
>
> When the external world ceases to sense you, the self collapses inward.
> The human being becomes sealed inside their own skull, trapped within the
> narrow boundaries of the ego. Cut off from the biospheric feedback loop,
> one grows self-centered, anxious, egomaniacal, desperate for recognition—an
> “economic man” shaped by scarcity of attention.
>
> Only occasionally do close relationships—family, friends, a
> partner—restore a fragment of the ancient sensing ability. Their attention
> briefly reopens a window to the lost macro identity. But even this is
> fragile, because economics has eroded everyone’s natural capacity for deep
> perception.
> ------------------------------
>
> *The Hunger for Notice*
>
> Deprived of the vast and subtle acknowledgment once provided by nature,
> modern humans develop a chronic starvation for notice. This manifests as
> constant shouting for recognition—debates, arguments, displays of
> dominance, breaking records in volume or visibility. These are desperate
> attempts to compensate for the collapse of the ecological communicative web.
>
> When nature is whole and free, we organically develop the macro identity.
> When nature is destroyed, our bodies become our prisons. Economics, by
> isolating us from the sensory field of life, turns the human body into a
> jail cell of ego.
> ------------------------------
>
> *The Way Forward*
>
> If human beings are to reclaim psychological and spiritual freedom, they
> must restore the ecological networks that once allowed the macro identity
> to flourish. We need free, healthy nature not just for survival, but for
> the recovery of the full human self—our ability to transcend the narrow ego
> and re-enter the living field of the biosphere.
>
> Economics has given us many tools, but by severing us from nature, it has
> made us strangers to ourselves. To heal, we need not simply economic
> reform, but *ecological reconnection*.
> Only then can the macro identity return.
> ------------------------------
>
> If you’d like, I can:
>
> ✅ simplify this into a short essay
> ✅ convert it into a poetic or metaphorical piece
> ✅ expand it into a philosophical or scientific article
> ✅ help you prepare it for publication or a talk
>
> Just tell me your preference.
>
>
>
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