Where does ‘self’ come from?
Comments (2) I recently listened to This American Life episode #220, Testosterone. Not surprisingly, all the stories are about testosterone: about one man whose testosterone levels dropped to almost nothing and his experiences, an interview with a transgendered man and his experiences being on testosterone, the results of the show staff getting their testosterone levels checked, and one woman talking about her experiences interacting with her fifteen-year-old son.
Since listening, I’ve been thinking about where “self” comes from. My big reluctance to taking antidepressants has always been from a fear of losing something of myself, of not being sure where my emotions are coming from. As the man interviewed in the first section of the This American Life episode notes, we like to think our soul and personality is disconnected from our biological functions. That is, if I lost an arm, I’d still be me. But messing with chemical levels in the body (and, specifically, hormonal levels) can alter us in ways that maybe we don’t like to acknowledge or think about.
Themocracy