Talking About Yourself in the Third Person

I was asked a question recently, which I paraphrase here, "Why is it easier for Sam to modify their behaviour when they say 'Sam doesn't do that sort of thing?'" Here is my answer:

I suppose you mean it is easier than if you had made the equivalent statement in the first person as well as if you hadn't made the statement at all.

If so, we should consider the difference between Sam saying to themselves, 'I don't eat a whole packet of biscuits in one go' and their saying, 'Sam doesn't eat a whole packet of biscuits in one go'.

I can't help seeing an externalisation of will taking place akin to the Feng Shui practice of imagining a royal dragon as your guest and trying to make your home appealing to them. Jo might be prepared to live in a dark, squalid, cluttered home but not be able to assume that such an honoured and noble invitee would wish to enter a home in such a state. Even so, it is Jo who makes the judgements that lead to the two markedly different presentations of their home.

In Sam's case, the assertion in the first person might collapse because they know that they bloody well did pig the lot only two nights ago. By contrast, the same assertion in the third person creates somebody called 'Sam' in Sam's mind. 'Sam' cannot be the same 'Sam' - from Sam's perspective - that is denoted by the perpendicular pronoun a) because 'I' has a unique self-intimacy and b) because anyone addressed in the third person is not 'me' and not 'you'. They are outside the conversation and not directly addressable. They are a person, and a whole person, apart and separate from anybody in this exchange. They have their rights and views and Sam cannot presume to modify them in their narrow self-interest.

But a trick is being played by Sam upon themselves because this 'Sam' really is Sam, what 'Sam' wants really is what Sam wants, and - crucially - what 'Sam' doesn't do really is what Sam doesn't do.

So Sam, in an existential sense, gets to have their cake and eat it (but still not the biscuits). They be themselves, they create an alternative persona with a better ethical code than they've got, and then they realign the two like a car joining a motorway from a slip road, without actually allowing the whole system to collapse into the 'I' whose ethical consistency can be overturned by basic gluttony.

It is more subtle than the dragon method, due to the linguistic prestidigitation involved, but it's fundamentally the same mental process.

tuutuuk and problem foton-ru

i have friend one time live down by jivolat, name tuutuuk, when i down at jivolat rinse glut of extra-being from tulablong, yes, i go into tuutuuk abode and sit it tuutuuk on new-light rug of circle made fur of gretenv, there we talk long time, one time tuutuuk it tell i, parsap up in kel great dificult for tuutuuk, it say parsap drain greatly of nekkel and tuutuuk, it no able tag all foton-ru 

i think well problem, foton-ru no tag it fur it no curl and fur foton-ru no curl it jangle bad it put it tobing machine, i say tuutuuk, it make grow jolibop of low of moving shab and a foton-ru it like go jolibop and it consume and fill it foton-ru nogon of jolibop, here it parsap no drain nekkel of it tuutuuk, tuutuuk it thank i with podon of a sniveg, i warm of it podon of sniveg of tuutuuk and i go

happen many task, i get extra-being pull hard it tulalblong so go i jivolat, yes, i go into tuutuuk abode, and new-light rug of circle made fur of gretenv it no have tuutuuk on or near, i go rinse glut of extra-being good and feel more good and go walk by low of moving shab and, yes, bowing come to i hear, bowing of loss and bowing of death-come-near, i fast now and hot and burn in shom, fear i death of tuutuuk

i find tuutuuk it clutched in jolibop, jolibop snarl so hard i never see and tuutuuk it not can run and moving shab it tuutuuk almost below, i go back tuutuuk abode, take slom it under new-light rug of circle made fur of gretenv, i go back where tuutuuk, i put slom of snarl of jolibop, it jolibop it die-go-down, now tuutuuk it below of moving shab i put slom more of snarl of jolibop, it jolibop die-go-down in a wind and pull i tuutuuk by it maggon, tuutuuk it out it moving shab and tuutuuk it no give i fear death of tuutuuk, it tuutuuk look i old-light of eye and it tuutuuk go

again happen many task and glut of extra-being of i pull like rock long of maggon, pass i abode of tuutuuk and go in it tuutuuk abode and not i see tuutuuk and not also see i rug, think i well and know i it tuutuuk it go and see in picture-in-nekkel that i not find tuutuuk in abode of tuutuuk in moment-to-do for until moment-to-die and small moving shab i touch on face and go back i abode for find wisdom