Deleuze…Destroying My Understanding of Identity and the Self | I'm Writing a Screenplay

Welcome, you wonderful multiplicity.

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To those subscribed, thank you…it means the world to me.

And to everyone…thank you for being here.

So…let’s enter the labyrinth.

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Some thoughts to start off this one…

A common thought in our hustle-obsessed culture is this idea that your thoughts create your own reality. People want to convince us that our reality is created purely by us! In another post, we will dive into how that simply attempts to separate us from collective guilt. But…your thoughts don’t create your reality. Your thoughts are the interpretations of reality. Your use of language leads you to constantly create interpretations of what goes on around you. These interpretations can become extremely subjective.

The idea that your thoughts are literally creating reality is an illusory narrative of the ego.

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Trauma and suffering are different.

Trauma becomes a symbolic object in our psyche that we utilize memory to facilitate. Where suffering becomes the emotion that allows us to recognize that symbolic object within our psyche. Thus, suffering becomes the necessary emotion/state to process the trauma.

Suffering, in a sense, becomes necessary to deconstruct and deterritorialize the symbolic objects in our psyche.

I’ll develop this thought more on another day…but I thought you’d find it interesting to consider in its current form.

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Deleuze…Destroying My Understanding of Identity and the Self

Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher known for influencing the movement of post-structuralism and postmodernism. Let’s do some analyzing of some of my favorite thougths/quotes of his…

Enjoy:)

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.”—Gilles Deleuze

Our societies are full of words, concepts, and ideas that we build our identity of the self around. We are constantly creating ‘concepts’ of who we are, thus our ideas of ourselves, those identities — they become bricks. What will you do with your bricks? Will you create a territory for yourself, one that has you building, building, and building a symbolic structure that you would not dare allow anything to deterritorialize?

Or will you embrace the flow of a constant intake of concepts, ideas, and beliefs? Which becomes the embrace of constantly building your courthouses of reason, but always ready to welcome the destruction of your structure.

Life becomes the constant construction and deconstruction of one’s identity.

“The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities.”—Gilles Deleuze

The self looks to identify two points of comparison when encountering new information. We are always becoming who we are; or, as we often oversimply this progression, we proclaim we are ‘becoming our true selves.’ Yet, we must recognize the constant flow we face by embracing our uncertain and interconnected nature, thus the self is an always incomplete course of endless becoming.

The self (identity) can only be sensed and understood by a threshold that establishes a position between two multiplicities. And, with the fall of one self (identity), another is created.

“To affirm is not to bear, carry, or harness oneself to that which existed, but on the contrary to unburden, unharness, and set free that which lives.”—Gilles Deleuze

Affirmation is not the act of possessing, but rather—that of release.

We must recognize how we flow into new versions of the self, yet embrace how this flow is a constant. And part of this flow is to understand and allow ourselves not to harness an identity after a realization, but affirm that realization, and then allow it to release into then new self.

Thus, we begin to understand ourselves as a series of thresholds that establish positions between two multiplicities. And by affirming our truths and constantly flowing into new realizations, we can empower an existence that is not burdened into oneself that has to be harnessed and carried but becomes the creation of a multitude of possible identities.

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I’m Writing a Screenplay

I’m writing a screenplay(as the title spoils). End of post? No, of course not.

I’m going to write journal entries about the process in order to share some insights into the process for those who have been so kind as to support my writing and content production over the last few years.

People are more likely to remember our mistakes than our triumphs, so I’m going for the “oops” approach with this project, where you’ll be along for the ride with the insights about the mistakes I’ve made. And if you’ve been reading my work for a while, you’ll probably know what kind of film I’m going for.

I’ve been considering writing a screenplay for about a year and a half now, as I think the film is a wonderful means to present stories and ideas. Especially creating symbolic representations of ideas that are better equipped to send people down the rabbit hole of questioning their beliefs.

And this is the motivation behind everything I create. Everything is an opportunity to question. Everything is an opportunity to learn, feel, and share experiences with one another.

I ask more questions than I answer because the truth is I don’t think anyone has it all figured out. There are so many things that we just…aren’t meant to understand. And I believe that’s why there are so many different religions, politics, cultures, etc. We all embrace stories, narratives, and illusions to help us understand this strange existence.

That’s where I think film comes in. I don’t like the word “entertainment” because that’s not what the central role of films are for me. Entertainment is a subset. Films are about something deeper than that. Films explore ideas, cultures, and narratives to present them within the context of a story, but to do it in such a way as to make us question our relationship with those things.

For me, the film is a means to be a wonderful mind opener to dive deeper into the beliefs we hold about existence. And this remains at the foundation of everything I create.

So, would you like to come along for the ride? And if any of you have some thoughts or advice send them my way.

I’m making this post completely public so feel free to heart and comment on substack

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Talk soon.

With love,

Brenden