Our 60th Banter topic is about 'checking in' with your younger past self and/or your older future self when evaluating your life paths and choices.
Did you make commitments to your older self or promises to your younger self? Do you ponder what your older or younger self would think of you now? If not, why not? If you truly could talk to your older or younger self, would you even understand one-another? Which direction would any advice flow...forward or backward in time, or both?
The intent of this topic is not so much to discuss your personal life goals and regrets (though you can), but more to look into philosophical, psychological, scientific, spiritual literature on this topic for broader discussion. As one of the few (only?) earthbound creatures aware of our own mortality, are we the only species that hold these internal dialogues with ourselves in different life phases? Are there other cultures, spiritual beliefs, or times in our human past where this concept would seem ludicrous (ex. those who believe in reincarnation, that do not see time as linear, are strict causal determinists, or whom, simply, don't have the luxury of such rumination because of a need to just, simply, survive each day). For those that do seek advice or wish to please their older and younger incarnations, is there value in doing so at all, or is this a 'Ship of Theseus' problem where you really are no long the old you anymore?
As a primer to get the thoughts flowing here is a three and a half minute, humorous video on of a 32 year old interviewing himself at 12. It has 32 million views so you may have seen it. If so, or you need more inspiration, this is a one minute NPR story that references a similar self interview video.
Sabine’s contribution:
When it comes to selves and reconciling my different selves, or talking amongst them, or taking inspiration or scolding from them, what writers do in each sentence comes to mind, especially creative nonfiction writers, dealing in autobiography and classical essay form (Phillip Lopate, Virginia Woolf, Hazlitt). I think these resources might explain what I mean. I think, being a writer, I see my selves in this way too - there are a lot of them to converse with just to get one sentence down accurately about how I really felt/feel about any of the more impactful experiences or lovely moments in my life:
“When you’re writing an essay, you as the essayist are both moving forward and circling back to what you said and arguing with yourself, or at least asking yourself if this is what you really think. That’s part of the scrupulousness of this kind of writing. It’s not, is this what others think I should think? but, is this what I actually think?” - Phillip Lopate
Phillip Lopate is now an older writer in New York (very interested in his younger selves & current self), and was a professor of mine at Bennington.
Listen to 1:10 to 1:39 in particular from Lopate on a key concept he takes on in his essays all the time and in essay writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaNQgMhKTi4
Then read/listen to one or the other of these (one a written interview and the other an audio recorded interview with Phillip Lopate on a conversation with his present self, former self, and his mother, relating to one of his more recent books):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyshF-_TVI0
https://lithub.com/phillip-lopate-revisits-a-30-year-old-conversation-with-his-mother/
And, last (sorry to be hoggish with space), but thinking about and reading Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” also seems quite important to bring up when we are thinking about our young self and our current self facing each other from either vantage point (looking ahead to the unknown older self, or looking back at the known younger self). Either of them might have a tendency to not tell all the truth, to be disappointed, to want something one or the other couldn’t give. Frost reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie2Mspukx14
And, a quick overview of how it is often misinterpreted/misread, being Frost’s “tricky poem": https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/555959/robert-frost-road-not-taken/
We can’t be all the things nor walk down all the paths, as Lopate said above in the 1:10-1:39 and in his own “The Roads Not Taken” in The American Scholar. My own insistence on that has exhausted me by my mid-40s but I think (hope) I have taken enough roads now to satisfy both my younger and upcoming, yet-older self. I could use a rest to simply assimilate now all of my aspects of selves and experiences in situ with a pen in hand on Columbia Avenue, where banters began. How smart we were then to think of banter nights, and what joy and camaraderie we’ve brought to our subsequent selves. That first banter has made all the difference to this 60th banter night.
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