The Interchange Between Identity and Worldview: In Conversation with Tyler McCall

Written By Reese Brown

This week I was able to sit down with one of my oldest friends, Tyler McCall. Tyler is not only a brilliant writer and thinker, but she has also taught me innumerable lessons about friendship. In this episode of Making Meaning, we discuss a multitude of things that can impact our identities and develop our worldviews. We continue this conversation by talking about how our identity can morph over time as we gain new experiences and insights, but that there is still something innate, an intrinsic, “you-ness,” that we all seem to have. We also discuss the possibility that our identities and worldviews can interchangeably impact one another. This constantly evolving process of self-definition is vital to consider when discussing meaning making and requires us to consider who we have been, who we want to be, and who we feel that we truly are.

Tyler’s story serves as an example of this interchange between worldview and identity. She expresses how she has natural people pleasing tendencies which encourage a desire for achievement and accomplishment. She credits this aspect of her personality, not to any external pressures, but to an internal desire to please other people. At a young age, Tyler learned and internalized how different behaviors brought her parents happiness so she instinctively continued these behaviors. During her maturing process, however, Tyler reached a point where she realized she was acting for those around her more than for herself. As we grow up, each of us reaches a point of development where we stop seeing ourselves as a function of our parents and begin seeing ourselves as an independent entity. In psychology, this forms the basis of Attachment Theory. While there are still holdovers from wanting to please your parents, when we see ourselves as individuals, separate from our parents, we can begin to act more independently. This is why it is common for so many teenagers to act in direct opposition to their parent’s wishes. While Tyler never had this rebellious phase, she began to see some of the problematic elements of taking action for others instead of yourself. Beginning college allowed Tyler to grow away from people pleasing, and while she admits she still has work to do, she can certainly see the ways she has improved in taking care of herself and living the life she wants to live.

In order to act for ourselves as opposed to other people, we need to pay attention to our own wants, needs, and desires. This in and of itself necessitates some pretty serious introspection. When you are acting only for yourself, when you are purely alone, who are you? This calls to mind the old adage, “If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, make a sound?” Intuitively, most people are inclined to say yes, of course it makes a sound. But does this sound even matter if it does not reach someone’s ears? If the sound waves have nowhere to go, and no one is perceiving them, then does the sound have a purpose? If there is no purpose, then does the sound exist at all? This question is a thought experiment of the larger question that is true for all of us: If we are not being perceived by anyone else, if we are acting only for ourselves, if we are left without purpose, can we truly exist? This question is one that only plagues human beings. The tree is not concerned with its own higher calling. However the human being, when it does not make a sound, wonders if we can still leave an impact, a mark proving our time here. While I would assert that, no, the tree does not make a sound, I would also argue that it is the call, the duty, of the human being to create purpose while alone. Even if we are not, “making a sound,” we still have the ability to move forward with meaning individually.

Reckoning with self growth motivated Tyler to continue her self development. Tyler’s discussion of continually striving for improvement reminds me of this quote from an unknown author, but that is commonly misattributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

“For what it’s worth... it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start over again.”

Starting over is incredibly daunting during this life that is both terribly short and insufferably long. Whether you choose to see your time left in this body as being too much or too little, you have the power to embrace the excitement of all the life you have left to live, or accept the comfort of the little time you have left.

Continuing, Tyler explains how her process of growth allows her to see numerous different versions of herself throughout her life while also retaining the innate qualities that make up who she is. If we do have a consistent identity throughout our life, even underneath all that changes, what is that consistency? Depending on your religious or philosophic tradition you might call it a mind, soul, consciousness, or chi. But whatever word you use to describe that innate sense of you, how has that come to be? And where will it go? Of course, these questions turn our conversation to religion and Tyler discusses how she was raised with some religious tradition, but most of her upbringing was characterized by a safe space for her to explore and develop her own sense of spirituality. Tyler also describes how both her mom and dad have varying belief systems, and I think their unique worldviews draws an excellent example of the difference between religion and faith. While most people would argue that religion and faith go hand in hand, I suggest that they are radically different (and almost rare to find together). Religion is a community that provides you with ritual, history, and typically a place to worship, whereas faith is a belief that deals with the unknown. These two are not mutually exclusive, and it is possible to have both, or neither, but I think a large part of our miscommunication about different belief systems comes from conflating religion and faith. This mistake gets us into plenty of disputes about meaning, purpose, and higher powers when the underlying problem is simply a difference in language usage.

Father Richard Rohr discusses the dichotomy between faith and religion in his book, Breathing Underwater. 

“When religion does not move people to the mystical or non-dual level of consciousness it is more a part of the problem than any solution whatsoever. It solidifies angers, creates enemies, and is almost always exclusionary of the most recent definition of “sinner.” At this level, it is largely incapable of its supreme task of healing, reconciling, forgiving, and peacemaking. When religion does not give people an inner life or a real prayer life, it is missing its primary vocation. Let me sum up, then, the foundational ways that I believe Jesus and the Twelve Steps of A.A. are saying the same thing but with different vocabulary: We suffer to get well. We surrender to win. We die to live. We give it away to keep it. 

This counterintuitive wisdom will forever be resisted as true, denied, and avoided, until it is forced upon us—by some reality over which we are powerless—and if we are honest, we are all powerless in the presence of full Reality.”

In this excerpt, Father Richard Rohr puts into words something I have always grappled with: the dichotomy between spirituality and certainty. Inherently, human beings want to find the certain, reach a conclusion, and establish unmistakable meaning, but the path to meaning is one paved with questioning, doubts, and acceptance of our inability to comprehend what is True. Father Richard Rohr makes space for the uncertainty of faith within religion, which typically seeks to provide answers, and settling into that doubt is by no means comforting, but could perhaps be called hopeful.

To discuss Tyler and her family’s personal beliefs I want to ensure that I do not speak for anyone but myself and that I do not mischaracterize anyone’s beliefs. So as I continue, please do not take anything I say as representative of anyone but myself. From what Tyler expresses, it seems like her mom is a person of religion, and while both her mom and dad may be open to exploring faith, the belief in something beyond our current reality is not the driving factor behind how they live their life. The ritual in religion is simply a comforting and community centered way to mark momentous occasions and find routine. Tyler, on the other hand, is a spiritual person but is not religious. She says in the episode, “I believe in magic in the world. I believe in higher powers, I just don’t prescribe to a specific religion.” She is an excellent example of someone who has a deep belief in faith, in something we cannot see but only sense, yet feels no need to answer that feeling with doctrine. Tyler’s worldview is mainly based in the current moment. She also expressed, “I think things come from people.” When we look at what is important in this moment, in our lifetime, Tyler lives by how we treat other people, how we can make this world a better place, and how we can leave our world better than we found it. While this does not necessarily stem from a spiritual place for Tyler, it certainly does not contradict a belief in higher powers. 

Tyler and I continue our conversation with a discussion of our shared school experience. Conferring about our shared experiences and the relationship between religion, politics, and society within our school allows us both to come to a few new personal realizations about our unconscious bias. Seeing our school as a (reverse) microcosm of our larger society examples the earlier discussion of worldview and identity formation and interchange. In large part, the way we develop our beliefs, or at least come to frame our beliefs, are forged through our experiences, but perhaps there are also beliefs embedded so deep within us that no amount of socializing could make them budge. The life we experience, and things like politics, religion, social norms, and worldviews all feed, and feed on, our own unique cocktail of self.


To further explore the things discussed in this blog post, check out the below resources and recommendations.

I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did! If you want more content, subscribe to Making Meaning on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and subscribe to the blog so you never miss a post! If you want to join the conversation, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn @thecoherecollective and leave a comment sharing your thoughts on this episode and blog. If you want more of Tyler, follow them on Instagram @thetylermccall. 

Until next time, so much love!


XX

Reese, Founder

The Cohere Collective

Reese Brown
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