Who Holds The Clicker Analysis

How One’s Self is created

One’s self is created by the social, political and environmental factors that impact a person’s life. How they are brought up, how they are spoken to, what they are taught. These factors that create a person are what influence them to make the decisions they make, the people they choose to speak to, the life they choose to lead. The environment creates a person’s thoughts and those thoughts are what give them the ability to make their own choices. Everything a person does is in their control. In "Who Holds the Clicker," Lauren Slater raises questions about what shapes identity and true self. In her essay, she speaks of the case of "Mario" who overcame OCD through surgical means. Mario’s OCD was a factor that affected

the choices he made and a person’s true “self” is created by how they act. Thus, undergoing a surgery to rid of that OCD, changed his true “self.” De Botton’s “On Habit” emphasizes De Botton’s fears that his ignorance of a new territory will result in torture from those who are native. His fear comes from his loneliness in his own territory, where he feels that traveling will make him feel better but was let down by the amount of humiliation that came along with traveling. De Botton observed people are judged because of their ignorance of an unknown territory making him afraid of traveling. His fear stems from his environment. He witnessed the cruelties of the world, and was shaped by it. De Botton has the control to become impervious to people’s taunts, but he chooses to pine over it instead.
A true “self” is what makes a person. Their self is not defined by their occupation or their current situation. Their self is defined by how they view those things or how they respond to those things. De Botton is fearful of judgment from those who are less ignorant than him. His fear is part of his true self. If he did not have those fears, he would not be De Botton. Lauren Slater does not believe that a person should be changed surgically. Although Slater detests the idea of surgery, Mario is “proud of his progress.” (Slater 243) Their beliefs about surgery and how they react to it, are what define them.
De Botton commonly uses the phrase “grid of interests,” this is his method to describe the way a “habituated” mindset views their home.

They are blind and are unwilling to see anything but their “grid of interests.” When having a “grid of interests,” a person singles out one object or area and focuses on that particular thing. De Botton states that we “approach new places with humility”(62) because we are afraid of what we are about to see. The reason that we become so afraid of approaching new places is that the environment plays a huge factor in who a person becomes. De Botton’s “grid of interests” stems from his fear of changing his environment. Mario, in “Who Holds The Clicker?” changed his environment to become a person he would prefer to be. Mario was not afraid like De Botton, he knew what he wanted and he took it. The reason that De Botton is afraid and Mario is not is because De Botton’s fear and Mario’s fearlessness are part of who they are. It is hard for them to change because it is part of their “true self.” Once a person has been created, it is very hard to alter that

naturally.
It is commonly believed that fate determines everything, but that is not true. A person has control in how their lives turn out. They can choose to quit smoking, go to college, join the army etc. Even though an environment is what shapes a person, the person has the control to change that environment like “having a drug prescription. We decide how much, when, and how.”(Slater 240) For example, De Botton’s environment made him insecure of being who he wanted to be. He thought about the life he could have instead of pursuing his dreams of traveling. He may not have been in control of how people thought of him but he was in control of his life, he had the option to go out and travel but instead he chose to wallow about it instead. De Botton’s actions were chosen by his environment, but he had the ability to change that. Like De Botton, Mario also had a choice in who he wanted to be. In Slater’s essay, Mario was presented with OCD. The OCD is an environmental factor, it is what made him do the things he did. Although he did not choose to have OCD, Mario had control to join the medical trial and change the factors that were impacting his life choices. He realized that he did not like his OCD and decided that the surgery was “well worth the risk.”(238 Slater) By accepting to do the surgery, he was able to change his environment, the OCD, and create a new environment for himself. This shows how people have a choice of who they want to be.
Although Mario had full control of his actions when he chose to participate in the surgery, the actual surgical procedure was not under his control. Anything could happen on the table of an operating room and that is left to the hands of the doctor, thus saying that the doctor molding a person to be someone else. This proves that people are not entirely in control of their fate, only partially. Like Mario, De Botton was also not in complete control of his environment. The reason De Botton is wary about being who he wants to be is because people humiliate those that act differently than most do. De Botton has no control of how those people think, making him only partially in control of his surroundings. A person cannot have complete control of how things will turn out. For example, a person can study all month for an exam, but when they arrive to take the exam it turns out that it is cancelled. The person had the control to study for that exam, but did not have the control to prevent it from being cancelled. Although people do not have complete control in how things turn out, they do have control in how they can handle the outcomes of their involuntary fate. De Botton chose to write about his inability to travel and Mario chose to have surgery. Those decisions are what define them because it shows how they act in a situation they cannot control.
Like Slater, De Botton also believes that “our responses to the world are crucially moulded by whom we are with.”(De Botton 64) This quote emphasizes the fact that a person’s surroundings and how they were raised, is what shapes a person.

Slater believes that going through a surgical procedure to change themselves, ruins the authenticity of their true “self.” The authenticity of a person is who they are when their personality has not been hindered artificially. If a person changed who they are because they have learned something, then that is still authentic. But Lauren Slater introduces the idea of changing who you are through surgery and that is basically being molded by someone else to be a different person. Lauren Slater’s story speaks about a person being changed into who they are not. In her story she speaks about how a man went into surgery and his whole self had been changed. Mario became a whole new person from being in surgery. She does not believe that one person should have to go through surgery to become a whole new person because people are the way they are for a reason. Slater shows her disapproval for this type of surgery by using grotesque terms to define the surgery like “gruesome,” “twisted,” and “grinds” (Slater 239) This shows the fact that she views the surgery and ruining a person by cutting them up. Slater views this surgical procedure as inhumane because it is stripping a person of who they are and what they do. Mario might have been raised one way,

but he ended up a different way. The idea of this kind of transformation is inhumane. It should not be practiced because a person needs to be molded by life. When a person goes into surgery to become a whole new person, it ruins their “authenticity.” Basically they are artificial because they are forced to be someone instead of becoming that person themselves. The way a person turns out to be or how they think is created by how they are raised. Yes, it would be great to be able to remove mental illness from people’s minds, but like Slater says “Who Holds The Clicker?” That person would not be in control of themselves. They are being altered to be a way that they are not. The doctor would hold the clicker because it is the doctor who is going to decide how you will turn out and what you will think. Thoughts should not be artificially altered because those thoughts are what make us. We are the person we are today because of how we act and what we believe in. De Botton true “self” is purely insecurities. He is insecure of what people think or are going to think about him. Although that is who De Botton is, he is not content with it. Although De Botton has the control to have surgery performed to remove these insecurities, he would think a completely different way. De Botton would not be the same person that he formerly was. Although a surgery to change who you are can be viewed as inhumane, it is also a person's choice. Mario chose to have that surgery, Slater and Mario’s beliefs differ because they have different true selves. Slater may not agree with Mario’s decision, but in the end that is her opinion and if she could alter Mario’s decision in any kind of way that could also ruin his authenticity because she forced him to think a certain way. There is more than one way to ruin someone’s authenticity, and it does not always involve surgery. A person’s true self is how they think without the influence of others.