On self-identity and roles

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Life can be a balancing act between a lot of various relationships. Each one involves somewhat different aspects of oneself and of the partner. For example, lovemaking utilizes aspects that are not utilized elsewhere and may be a bit surprising to all concerned at times; life is a learning process. Practice makes perfect, it is said... so long as one has a clear definition of "perfect" of course. And then it helps to have relationship partnering that fits fairly well into that definition's other aspects. Realizing that much of life, and especially lovemaking, is composed of each other's own fantasy painting onto the ongoing physical experience, helps keep perspective for being at peace with it all while discovering the specially interesting parts.

All people play many roles in life, developing a facility for shifting between those roles. Discovering what is one's love partner's best dream fantasy of a lover, could help, as it is said that one needs to be the partner's dream lover for best enjoyment for them. Putting a few minutes attention into that conscious role process could be quite worthwhile; remembering that each one's roles in daily life is played only briefly at a time, in the complex course of daily life. Perhaps the roles in life can be considered like the fingers on the keys of a piano while playing music, each piano key like a different role to sound for a moment.

People's self-identity often comes from the job(s) they do. Lots of men lose that identity when retiring, a real problem for them. "Being" a member of a church group, "being" a parent to whomever, "being" a fan of a particular TV show, all contribute to who one "is." Women's identity seems to come more from "being" the mom and grandmom in later years; similar for the grandpa too for the men. "Being" owner of a specific house, car, or other treasure also is part of self-identity; to some people what they "did" is more "who they are." Possibly some types of more intellectual people "are" what they "know", instead. "Having" a well-known prestigious partner, is part of self-identity too, for some people. Overall, each person's self-identity is likely to "be" a collection of bits of all of these, with one arena a lot more important to them than the other arenas.