Gallen’s essay had many aspects to it that truly stuck out to me, especially when he brought psychologists into his work since I have learned about some of them in past classes. He mentions Erik Erikson, who is well known for coining the phrase “identity crisis” which fits well with the topic. From Erikson’s 1968 work titled Identity: Youth and Crisis, the psychologist explains that “various selves…make up our composite Self”, which I think ties the basic point of this article up quite well, at least the authors perspective on personality.

I have felt impeded by my life story at times. Sometimes when meeting new people I tend to just share the positive/ideal aspects of life and ignore the negative, to be fair most people do this as well. Part of this mindset it because of the “happy moments only” requirement of social media, and of society in general. I do relate to Gallen with the multiple aspects of self point of view. I feel like that I can be a different person in some situations, or with certain people then in other settings. I think the different aspects of my personality all come together as one, but at the same time they can come out at different times. I really liked when he used the metaphor mentioned in philosopher Mary Midgley’s writing Wickedness, where the different aspects of personality are referred to as “organising the inner crowd”, I think this really puts my thoughts into words in a way.