The relationship between the I and the me is not as straightforward as Mead makes out. He gives the impression that the I emerges into the present moment from the context of previous me’s, constituted by past events and relationships, and the relationships continuing into the same present moment; that this I is undetermined and in a position to be creative and introduce novelty. My impression is that this is not normally the case; that the I is, more often than not, determined by the present context, what the existentialists would call inauthentic existence. The I in fact is not an I but is subsumed into the me. The person is carried along by the tide of events and relationships accepting the me imposed by the generalised other. In order for the creative I to emerge a space needs to be created between it and the present me. This is usually generated by a crisis, or some crucial event which distances the I, forcing it to examine the present situation, which causes it to stand back, to put things into perspective.
Even then the I may not be in a position to be creative and innovative. It may be too constrained by the pressures and relationships of the moment, it may lack the imaginative resources to break free. Mead fails to take into account the energy generated by these surrounding events and the corresponding inner strength required to abstract from them. This inner strength needs a foundation, a base, a fulcrum from which it can exert itself. This may be a supportive relationship, it may an awareness that one’s being is rooted in Being. One of the advantages of meditation is that it does create this distance. It allows one to see how ephemeral are the shifting events and relationships. It brings into awareness the inner still point, the unmoving (and unchanging?) centre. I am reminded of the Chhandogya Upanishad:
In this body, in this town of Spirit,
there is a little house shaped like a lotus,
and in that house there is a little space.
One should know what is there…
What lies in that space does not decay when the body decays,
nor does it fall when the body falls.
That space is the home of Spirit.
Every desire is there.
Self is there, beyond decay and death.