Trending the Unacknowledged You

17 years later, I have read Douglas Coupland’s Life After God. Personally, I think it is forgivable considering I was 10 when it was published in 1994, and one should be above a specific age to truly benefit from the thoughts it provokes.

As far as age is concerned, it seemed remarkable how applicable the introspective vignette’s, contained within the novel still are to, particularly, those within the late-20-something to 45 age bracket. This is in spite of the momentous shifts in technology and social interaction that have occurred since its publication in the early 1990s. Of course, this is not to say that books published any more than two decades ago are irrelevant in terms of their wisdom, as that is wholly untrue, it is more correctly a re-assertion of the old “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Youth is youth, aimlessness is aimlessness, and trying to figure oneself out is ever a work in progress.

This is precisely where a very interesting thought from the book comes into play. In the chapter “Patty Hearst,” the narrating character outlines a fascinating method by which one may learn more about themselves, it is as follows:

“...Everyday each of us experiences a few little moments that have just a bit
more resonance than other moments –we hear a word that sticks in our mind –or maybe we have a small experience that pulls us out of ourselves, if only briefly... If we were to collect these moments in a notebook and save them over
a period of months we would see certain trends emerge from our collection –certain voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us. We would realize that we have been having another life altogether...”

This passage stands out for two significant reasons. On the one hand, it suggests that we could employ traditional research techniques, particularly related to marketing and consumer behaviour, to more effectively learn more about ourselves. And secondly, it suggests, quite astutely, that there is a potentially significant dissonance between the self that we think we are and think we project, and the self that we actually are deep down, the one with all the patterns, passions and failings that may remain unacknowledged. This latter suggestion is also greatly tied to consumer behaviour research techniques, and how often our buying habits, as a result of strategies employed by marketers, more correctly reflect the self we wish to be, rather than the self we actually are.

This would be an intriguing experiment for one to attempt to learn more about themselves, the tracking of personal trends over time, indicating who we really are, and what we really think/care about, and recognizing the potentially big difference between the outerself that we think we are, and the innerself that we really do not know.