The Playful Self — Reflective Illustrations to Explore Models of Self & Identity

In the What, Why, and How, we often forget the Who.

What should I be doing in my life? Why am I really interested towards it?, and How should I go about it?, but of course in all of this, there is the question of Who would I become in the process?

There could be thousands of possible answers — I would become a successful person (whatever definition of success I have learned growing up or come to realize in the process); become famous, become rich, become an expert, a wise person, a respected person, a well-appreciated person, someone people love, become an inspiration for others, or maybe I want to become all of these and more…

But before going head-on towards any of these above journeys of ”becoming,” isn’t it vital to first ask oneself:
Who is this Who, who wants to become these Who?

In this post, I share a series of reflective illustrations that look at this simple but deeply transformative question:
Who am I?

Creating the reflective illustrations below was a very helpful exercise for me personally, and in sharing these widely, I hope they can serve as meaningful reflective prompts for anyone interested to explore and build their own models of Self.

In case the images fail to load properly below, this post can also be read on the MIT Media Lab website at— The Playful Self.

— Model 1 —

— — Model 2— —

— — — Model 3— — —

Attention follows Interest

— — — — Model 4— — — —

*It’s like missing the number ‘0’ in your set of numerals 1 to 9, and never being able to reach 10 despite all possible effort.

— — — — — Model 5— — — — —

Link to the poem — Please Call Me by My True Names

— — — — — — Model 6— — — — — —

Yogi ~ Self; R³ is shorthand for 3-dimensional space; ϵ ~ belongs to

This work has now been further extended into a complete essay, which can be read here: Who am I? — taking a dive within the self.

— manuj@mit.edu