Friday 14 December 2012

The Self...just a thought!


The hour glass of time can arguably be infinite; since the world had evolved rather than created so the self of man evolves with it.  An evolution of time runs parallel with our biological change of our bodies and the development of our psyche.  Its turnaround is a new attempt to our makeup: a constant change of our self if given the chance.  Every grain of sand is part of our nature and depending how they transcend or struggle through the funnel of life is the rearrangements of our thoughts and beliefs.  These experiences would overlap rearranging our doubts and feelings for a man to feel reborn once more.   The aesthetical landscapes of our inner sand dunes, rightly and wrongly, are what separates us and interprets us to others and ourselves.

It is our animalistic nature that makes it different, in both mind and body. That mosaic of humanity could be so different in all but its biological makeup.  It is important to differentiate between our nature and the self, where the latter’s identity is perhaps more transitory whereas the previous marks us as selfish, dominant, egotistical, judgmental and other peculiarities.  Fundamentally, we remain a paradigm of an equilateral triangle: the Self, Nature and Experiences; each side can take away or add to the other keeping a careful balance on our makeup.

Our nature is our symbol to the world and that is what others perceive as our self.  They only read it through a blur of prejudices and pre-grounded culture.  When we make judgements about individuals, is it our capacity to see the good and bad objectively? Or, is our perception clouded by our flaws and insecurities; or needs and wants? We have the presence of each other as well as the consciousness of each other, but we only perceive through our impartial judgements.. 




Our self is shaped and driven by our imagination and awareness at any given time, as our self is always in flux driven by concepts of our experiences.  The idea of ourself does not presuppose a reality, as it is immaterial, not spatial without form: infinite.  Can the outside world acquaint or identify beyond the veil of such a self?  I believe our world is moulded and transformed by all things around us with only one thing that is certain: a constancy of change.  What world can they know when the mind is in a world of its own.

For instance, it is rare that there is much in common with a school friend after 10 or 15 years separation.  For after the departing shot, it would be reasonable to suppose both would be thinking, “…how he has changed!”  We both remember what we care to remember about each other, but inevitably that memory is not intuitively generating the same person that it did a long time ago.  Both identities have forgotten that once recognisable patina, but instead, we are left with knowing the memory only.  With time, our personality becomes our minds and our self our experiences.  For some believers, to explain the self is like explaining the existence of God: you can not see, but you know he or she is there.  That is why we are different with different people depending on the mask we put on for identity to suit a mood or an occasion etc.  We need to look through the veneer of our personality to discover the truth of ourselves.


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