nature of my existence is contained in and expressed by all (and only those)

properties (like short temper) that express the unique nature of my person. To
understand myself, I need to understand the nature of these unique qualities; to
change myself I need the help of depth psychology or psychoanalysis, which tell
me how to change myself.
What, then, do I share in common with my fellow human beings? Basically, I share
the same biological substratum: genes, cells, body and brain. Of course, these do
have their influences on my psychology, but at the moment we do not know what
and how these influence us. In so far as I am a member of society, the current
social psychology tells us, I behave in certain ways which (mostly) do not
synchronize with my individual psychology: I share prejudices of my community; I
act irrationally when in a crowd and violently when a part of a mob and so on. In
short, the social and cultural psychology tell us about the ways in which society and
culture influence our behavior and thinking, which, of course, is mostly different
from the way I am. What I am is a confluence of all the unique properties that I
have.
As I have said often, this is only one picture about who we are and what we are. This
is a story that one culture has produced about human beings. These are not facts
about ourselves or about the way we are, even though we believe in their truth.
Let me use a metaphor to describe this image about human beings: our biological
inheritance forms the foundation of who we are. Above this foundation, a structure
gets built. This structure expresses our unique nature and our individual psychology.
In one sense, we are this structure. Changing ourselves requires changing this
structure. Introspection involves delving into this structure; depth psychology and
psychoanalysis dig deeper into this structure and relate layers from this structure to
each other. The lower we go in this structure, the more we share with other human
beings. The higher we go, the more unique we are. Thus, in the last analysis, depth
psychology and psychoanalysis relate the structure to some or another layer that
is common either across a small group of people (people who were abused during
their childhood) or across a bigger layer (the incestuous hunger of a son for his
mother). Whatever the explanation, the point is this: this structure is who we are
and any analysis can only relate some layers (or some elements) of this structure to
other layers or elements from the same structure. This is the image behind the
process of introspection we are so familiar with.
Two things standout in this regard: (a) the higher I go in the structure, the more
unique I am because I share less with other human beings; (b) my uncontrollable
short temper is undoubtedly how something which I share with other human
beings is expressing itself at the apex of such a structure. That is why I seem unable
to do anything about it. Thus, the apex of the structure is at the same time an
expression of my unique nature and also how something else, which is less unique
(and therefore what I share with other human beings) is expressing itself. Then, my

problem is with this structure itself: the way I am uniquely I. In short, my problem
is precisely with what I take to be my uniqueness!
This argument appears as a form of reductio ad absurdum of the idea underlying
the process of introspection which I have expressed in the form of imagery. On the
one hand, I am driven to build and put great weight on the structure I have built
because it expresses the unique nature of my being. On the other hand, it is
precisely this unique structure that makes me so unhappy because it looks as
though it is not sufficiently unique or unique enough. On the one hand, I aspire to
be unique; on the other, no matter how much I try, I cannot be unique enough to
earn that sobriquet.