Change is a constant part of our world. Everything, but especially individuals are constantly changing. “Leaning” explores this constant change and asks the question, is there a true self? Sartre writes about pillars holding up each individual’s sense of self. The problem lies within that these pillars may come crashing down at any time (being that they are based on memory). Using this assumption I claim that there is no true self, but instead a continually morphing ball of ideas that give rise to an illusion of self. In this way, Leanings is a metaphor for a continual state of change, a space between here and there, I am both not present in both spaces, but also partly present in both.
This constant flux of identity causes an inescapable anxiety that one has no true essence. Leaning is both about my deeply personal experience, and the much broader human condition. I think this lies at the heart of all existential dilemmas, and human existence. If we cannot find a true self, how will we ever find a reason to exist? Sartre, and other writers of course answer this, as the meaning of life is the meaning we give it, making our own “heaven” and “hell”. This however still leaves us with life, a blankness waiting to be filled by us, nonetheless still blank.
