Essential Distinctions of Identity

The children attended their cousin's third birthday party at a gym on Saturday. [Daniel later referred to the teenage girls who oversaw activities as "the cheerleaders": Ian laughed hardily and corrected him: "the gymleaders..."] After the party, where there were a total of three boys named Daniel, our own Daniel was complaining about another Daniel who was "mean". I forget the offense, but apparently Daniel rather easily becomes indignant at bad behavior, even when it's a third party who is victimized by it; Amy noticed that he gets very upset about impropriety, and she has a theory that I must have been the same way as a child, but this is all quite random "free association"...

In any case, once Daniel had established that there was another Daniel at the party who was mean, and he wanted to say something about this other Daniel, he began a sentence as follows, making clear both the other Daniel's meanness and his ontological distinction from the speaker himself. The subject was identified as follows:

"That mean boy that's Daniel that wasn't me there..."

(April 10, 2011)