Death of the other’s self

We’ve come to understand that our being is constantly, dynamically, and fluidly interchangeable. Who we are with one person may not be who we are with another. The synergy created with like-minded individuals (or groups) leads us to act differently than we normally would.

How many times do we find ourselves saying, “I feel like a different person around him,” or, “She makes me feel alive,” or, “With them, I rediscover a part of myself I had forgotten”? These examples reveal an important aspect: our self is deeply influenced by others. The person we connect with, in a sense, reflects a part of us, or rather, brings out a side of our being that wouldn’t manifest without them.

Our identity is made up of pieces tied to others. We are never truly ourselves in the pure, immutable way we like to imagine.

We depend on others for a part of who we are, but this doesn’t make us weak, nor does it mean we are entirely dependent. We exist in the world through relationships, and we cannot separate ourselves from this condition.

However, as much as interacting with others influences who we are in the moment, there is a logical line of coherence that guides and preserves the integrity of our self. This coherence is not about always being the same version, but rather maintaining a core identity that allows us to navigate through different versions of ourselves without getting lost.

The risk of losing ourselves arises only when there is a break in the logical continuity between the individual self and the collective self. If the change is so drastic and frequent that it leaves no trace of who we were, then yes, there is a risk of dissolving our identity into fragments without direction.

The collective self, therefore, should not be seen as a threat to our authenticity, but rather as a temporary, enhanced reflection of who we are. Every relationship, every social context, adds or subtracts something, and that collective self exists alongside our individual self. It doesn’t replace it, it doesn’t erase it, but instead, it runs parallel to it, broadening our sense of who we are.

When someone leaves our life, that particular self that existed in relation to them may no longer manifest in our daily lives, but it isn’t entirely lost. Memory, in fact, becomes a kind of emotional and psychological archive, where those versions of ourselves remain stored, even if they are no longer actively in use.

We can think of memory as a sort of "preservation zone" for the self, a place where fragments of our past continue to exist. These fragments no longer influence the present directly, but they can be recalled in moments of reflection, nostalgia, or simply through encountering something or someone that reminds us of that past. In a way, the self we’ve lost in a past relationship isn’t dead, but archived, and its memory can still have relevance in our present.

For example: imagine walking down the street and running into someone you haven’t seen since high school. Despite the years that have passed, during the interaction you might notice a strange feeling: without even realizing it, your attitude, tone of voice, maybe even your sense of humor or way of expressing yourself, seems to revert to how it was back then. It’s as if, in that person’s presence, a past version of your self, which only existed in relation to that specific context and relationship, reactivates.

This happens because your self during high school was partly shaped by your interactions with that person, the group dynamics, and the environment around you. When you meet that classmate again, even though you're a different person today, memory brings to the surface that old identity you had then—an identity tied to that relationship. It’s an unconscious, almost automatic process, as if your mind is trying to reconnect with a familiar way of being in the presence of that individual.

This "temporary reactivation" might make you feel, even if just for a brief moment, like you’ve gone back in time. It’s not a true regression, but rather a momentary recall of a past version of yourself that existed in that specific context. This happens because memory isn’t just a static archive; it’s a mechanism that, in the presence of certain stimuli—in this case, someone from your past—can recall the self that was active during that period.

When the people who helped shape us are no longer around, the self that existed only in relation to them doesn’t reappear in other relationships. It’s gone with them, because it existed exclusively in that specific relationship. Every fragment of us tied to a particular interaction or dynamic cannot survive on its own: it lives and fades along with those who brought it to life. When we lose someone dear, we also lose a part of ourselves. The memories remain, but we can never replicate who we were with that person.