Mikhail Bakhtin and the Unfinished Self

Описание: You are not one person. You never were.

Mikhail Bakhtin spent years under Stalin's regime writing ideas so dangerous they tried to bury them: that the self is not a monologue but a dialogue, that you are not finished and never will be, that every coherent identity you perform is a lie told to an audience that isn't even watching.

This is the episode where we take apart the myth of the singular self. Where we explore why consciousness is a conversation with no ending. Where we stand on the threshold between who you think you are and who you're still becoming. Where we discover that the voices arguing in your head aren't a bug. They're the only proof you're still alive.

Bakhtin understood what Dostoevsky documented: you contain multitudes. You are the person who wants to be good and the person tired of being good. The person who loves your life and the person who wants to burn it down. These aren't phases. These are voices. And the more you silence them, the louder they scream.

Stop trying to finish yourself. Stop curating coherence. Stop performing the completed self for an algorithm that doesn't care and an audience that doesn't exist.

You are unfinished. That's not a failure. That's the only thing keeping you real.

Much love, David x

For full, ad-free episodes, listen on https://theobservingi.com.