How free are you, really?

Identity and personhood are complex ideas that may have been quite different in the ancient past. Often, our contemporary inclination is to think of ourselves as individuals who operate with agency and intent, yet our actions, and consequently our various identities and personhood, are formed and directed as much by consciously and unconsciously inculcated social rules and norms as by freewill. Identity and personhood are relationally constructed, socially constrained.—His Good Name: Essays on Identity and Self-Presentation in Ancient Egypt in Honor of Ronald J. Leprohon, xix