Identity of the individual through language

English drives us to consider our relationship to the past. The individual is related to the act. Consider the differences between

• I swam
• I was simming
  
• I have swam
  
• I had swam
• I used to swim
• I used to go swimming
  
• I went swimming
• I have gone swimming
• I had gone swimming

You have to really think about how you are individually related to the action of swimming in the past that you are trying to communicate. This is an example of how language can try to own us as we are trying to make the language our own.