Identity arises from narrating a self that memory cannot directly retrieve

Evidence

All profound changes in consciousness, by their very nature, bring with them characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring narratives. After experiencing the physiological and emotional changes produced by puberty, it is impossible to ‘remember’ the consciousness of childhood. How many thousands of days passed between infancy and early adulthood vanish beyond direct recall! How strange it is to need another’s help to learn that this naked baby in the yellowed photograph, sprawled happily on rug or cot, is you. The photograph, fine child of the age of mechanical reproduction, is only the most peremptory of a huge modern accumulation of documentary evidence (birth certificates, diaries, report cards, letters, medical records, and the like) which simultaneously records a certain apparent continuity and emphasizes its loss from memory. Out of this estrangement comes a conception of person-hood, identity (yes, you and that naked baby are identical) which, because it can not be ‘remembered,’ must be narrated. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 746

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that personhood itself is built from narrative because memory cannot bridge the estrangement from one’s own infant self is richly layered and sits with the reader for days.
• ADDENDUM: Pairs naturally with the ‘Grafting & Growth’ essay’s metaphor work — autobiography as a graft onto roots one never directly experienced.
• FICTION: The premise — a self that cannot be remembered must be narrated, with photographs and documents as proxies for a continuity the brain never held — is rich material for a story about identity and documentation.