Tim Keller observes, following Charles Taylor that human beings used to receive their identity from their parents and their village. This was of course terribly restrictive and we might say “dis-empowering” because it relied on the desires of others. You were the canvas upon which your family of origin and your village painted even before there was a “you” to have an opinion about it.

Hundreds of movies and stories were made about this over the last few hundred years. They are often the central theme of most Disney movies. The autonomous self breaks free from the identity constraints imposed by the parents or the village or now the sexual and genetic material from which you were physically constructed. It is up to you to self-define, to self-construct. Failure to do so is immoral and removes you from what it means to be a fully realized human being.

A developmental psychologist will tell you that this process of differentiation is “normal” for people. It is a necessary stage usually found in adolescence.

Many articles over the last few years have observed how adolescence has elongated well into young adulthood if we consider marriage, having children, building a career as hallmarks of adulthood. Perhaps the signposts of adulthood are being delayed because culturally we have made this developmental state the definition of human arriving.

Here’s another gnarly fact of human beings. Our identities are socially negotiated, not self-constructed from our wills. Identities are out there in public. They are transactional.

Probably the best comparison would be to our reputation. If someone said “my reputation is up to me and me alone” we’d think them a fool because, although each of us (at least those of us with really big egos like me) would love to have what we think of ourselves forced upon everyone else this simply isn’t the case. Other people have other opinions of me most of which I have very little control over.

It is here that we find the crisis of acceptance and the demand that is being transmitted (or purchased) by the media centers and enforced by the government only often thwarted by that darn Bill of Rights.The world isn’t cooperating with my self-construction and I am hurt and angry.

I’ve lost 20 pounds over the last 6 months on the advice of my doctor. I had a choice. I could go on medication for cholesterol and high blood pressure or I could work on diet and exercise. I choose the later. It was a function of my will. Was it my doctor’s bias that had him put this choice forward to me? Was he simply a product of the fat-shaming medical community that loves to reinforce repressive body image upon 50 something year old males?

We cannot live without acceptance. The author of this video imagines surrounding themselves with this supportive cast of people which will mirror back to her the self her will desires. This is in some ways the reconstructed family of origin or village except the polarity of the will is reversed.

Christians of course believe that we belong to God. This is the first Q/A of the Heidelberg Catechism. Again and again in the Bible we strive to be faithful servants rather than autonomous selves.

The story of the Garden of Eden is one of differentiating from God, of adolescence. For a Babylonian exile the idea that Nebuchadnezzar would allow the gardeners to “take the garden in their own direction” was of course unthinkable. In the exile from the garden God offers the man and the woman a transaction. You may have freedom in your exile, but you won’t have me like you had me before. It was in their differentiation that they discover they are naked and try to cover. Now they know good and evil. Now they know shame. We’ve been playing out this story ever since.