Interlude LXXXVI: Becoming | Martin Buber, Charles Taylor, Identity, Belonging, Meaning, and the Relational Self

The Observable Unknown · Aug 25, 2026 · 6m

What does it actually mean to become yourself?

Is there a pure, authentic self buried somewhere beneath family expectations, culture, memory, relationships, obligation, history, and everything you’ve inherited?

Or do human beings become themselves through participation in relationships, traditions, communities, languages, and realities larger than themselves?

In Interlude LXXXVI of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey brings the current arc on inheritance and human becoming toward its synthesis through the work of Martin Buber and Charles Taylor.

The central proposition is: We become…