The Names We Wear

The Names We Wear is a poetry collection that merges the domains of philosophy, mathematics, musical forms, and world religions to challenge and even fracture our understanding of identity and our place within the world.

The fundamental philosophy with this work is that mankind lives in a transitive, modal reality that continually recycles itself. Our names are thus, merely fragile attributes within this modal, indeterminate world.

The work is designed as a literary version of a musical sonata with an introduction of the central theme "The naming of souls," which addresses a "Jung-inspired" enigma between the individuation/differentiated self and collective being. In our early development, we are assigned some placeholder, or "name" to distinguish ourselves from other entities and objects in our known reality. Our identity is thus, not really a function of our name but, this is how we are generally known or "assigned" with respects to others. Thus, we "wear" our names but our self-concept, the awareness of our difference from others, transcends our names.