Distinguish the idea of persona from that of self. Of the former, which corresponds to what is known in the culture as identity, we can say that it is both positive and purely tactical and situational - and therefore empty. It answers to a requirement for some positive thing where there is no reason, prior or posterior, to expect one to be found. But the persona is as much the persistent requirings of itself as the succession of insistent conjunctures that are put forward to assert their having been met. Its successes are often striking and we are endlessly indulgent of the parallax effect which makes them seem to arise from its mythically being founded in itself rather than a ruthless socially-mediated selection pressure - ruthless because the penalties it commands are peremptory and extreme. If there is one thing that readily focuses the mind it is the acquisition of a functional identity. The self then, by contrast, is negative and independent of circumstances, that is, not a thing, and therefore not engaged in the interlocking circles of causality that are the world in process. Neither is it a state or stage to be attained, but is perhaps nothing more than a name for the conscious assumption of the inner life. In Michelstaedter's terminology it is persuasion, and it is known from the beginning even if not manifest, since the persona is nothing but the pretence or the aspiration to an image of it.