Identity is an endeavour we can fail at

It's not just our bodies that die - it is our lives that we lose, which is why we experience hope, despair, longing, regret and the like. In the chronological passage of time, we grapple with phenomenological time: the past, present and future; time that flies and drags; and time that can be made up or squandered - Kim Atkins. 

I don't know yet if there is a philosophical question at the heart of all writing. I think it might be true but I'm not sure. But there is a philosophy that suggests a sense of self - an identity - is a sustained effort to tell a story, a narrative. Like all narratives, it is subject to revision and retelling as new evidence emerges to make it all add up. This story links past, present and future. We look in the past to understand the present and project into the future.

We can cope with most things, including new information and contradictory evidence, through this process of retelling the story. That's why none of us are truthful: not to ourselves or to others. But there can come a point when, if the incoherence is too extreme, the story breaks down and the narrative ruptures. This means that identity is really a verb and it's an endeavour we can fail at. And then what happens?

The Crow, a native American tribe that was assimilated by the US, famously answered as follows:

'And then, nothing happened.'

I wonder if all the developing nations are trying to answer this question, in response to the spread of Western culture and the fact that modernity is synonymous with Westernization.

I wonder if my answer would be the same (i.e., 'And then, nothing happened'). I'm not sure; this one will take a long time; but I don't think so.