Identity Crisis

by Jeff Siegel

There is a concert pianist, a fairly well-known and critically respected performer, named Jeff Siegel. I mention this not to flatter myself (my musical talent is almost non-existent) but to note that identity is a curious thing. Our culture is so focused on the individual that it comes almost as a shock to hear a radio voice announce that someone with your exact same name just played a piano sonata. After all, isn’t there supposed to be only one of me?

American society’s focus on the individual is, in this case, not a value judgment. Rather, it’s a comment on how different our particular culture is from others, even those in the West. I’m no sociologist, but it doesn’t take a Ph.D. to realize that the United States is about individualism, as opposed to clan or class. Even if the long-standing American ideal that every boy could grow up to be the president was a myth, it’s still a myth that is unique to the U.S. We celebrate the cowboy blazing the frontier, the entrepreneur, the man who goes bravely where no man has gone before. It’s the idea that each of us counts for something, that there is no one else like us.

Hence the doppleganger-type feeling when we discover someone who shares our name. If it makes me pause, and Jeff Siegel is hardly as common as John Smith, what must it do to all those John Smiths? Rick Rockwell, the ringmaster here at iVoryTowerz, has the same name as a nefarious sort who once headlined a TV network reality show, and Rick still has people ask him if he is the same fellow as that supposed millionaire.

There is a second Jeff Siegel in Dallas, a prominent psychologist, and I have not only gotten his mail (including a recent flier from the Jung Society of North Texas), but his phone calls as well. The ones from husbands who must get counseling as part of their divorce are unsettling, but are probably more embarrassing to the husband than to me. On the other hand, I have gotten calls (or even voice mail) from people who desperately need to reach the doctor. And I ain’t the doctor, no matter what my name is.

It almost makes me wish I had studied psychology. Or at least the piano.

(The photo is another wonderful contribution from Clara Natoli of Rome from morgueFile.)

individualism
identity
culture
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