There is an idea going around that a person shouldn't write about being left-handed unless he is himself left-handed. The basic idea is that you can't really walk in another's shoes. I read Louis Menand's New Yorker article discussing a new book by Christopher Miller called "Impostors: Literary Hoaxes and Cultural Authenticity", a survey of books purportedly written by a certain type of writer (Irish, Jewish, black, female) but actually not.
Since we are living in a time of cultural face-offs, greater cultural inter-mixing and communication, what is and is not "genuine" or "authentic" is of interest. At the same time, in a roundabout way, I got into the recently deceased Robert A. Johnson's "Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth". I read the same author's "She" recently and I am still impressed by the themes and insights that are woven into a story of a young woman's trials with her mother-in-law. I just watched "Crazy Rich Asians" last night and the same story emerged: his mother smiles but hates the young woman 'stealing' her son.
Whether it is Johnson or David Eagleman, I see that much of what we do is guided by inner forces that are often hidden.
Your consciousness is like a tiny stowaway on a transatlantic steamship, taking credit for the journey without acknowledging the massive engineering underfoot.
Eagleman, David. Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (p. 4). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I admire Jungian therapists who work with symbols and dreams and silent impulses explained and justified by elaborate reasons and stories created after the fact. I see that the human ability to imagine is really very powerful and can propel me into actions and thoughts, convictions and prejudices without giving me a chance to see what is up. I am beginning to suspect that I can hardly walk in my own shoes, or really know what it is like to be me.
