PERSONAL / INDIVIDUAL / SELF CONSCIOUSNESS
Only a man who thinks he knows everything about himself can have identity crisis.
If you are searching for your true self and are constantly bumping into this or that – keep on searching!
*
From now on, the phrase “that which is alive or conscious in us” will be frequently replaced by I or the “essence of our being”. The words “Self”, ego, “I” and similar expressions will be used for the “personal realm”.
However, a reader has to understand that I is not the right word. In fact, the “right” word does not exist. It is just the least wrong word.
*
Everything you (think you) know about yourself you have learned in the course of your life. All those countless pieces of information spin around your name and your body. And, they are false! They do not define, describe, represent that which is alive or conscious in you.
Try to imagine and describe the beginning of your life after emerging from your mother’s body. …Undoable. Because the second you start talking, you have to use words, names of organs, terms designating bodily reactions; and keep on saying “I”, “my”, “me”... But, you, a new-born baby, have no idea what you (a … year-old-man/woman) are talking about. The baby watches and sees something, listens and hears some sounds, but there is no “I” or “Self” in its mind! …Or words.
Still, in a few hours, new consciousness will irrepressibly start to evolve. The body is constantly exposed to all kinds of external influences: presence of people, bathing, changing of clothes, breastfeeding…, and the senses are continuously doing their work, nourishing the fast-growing brain. “Likes” and “dislikes” appear… Joy or anger…
In the second year (give or take few months) we begin to use the word “I” when we speak about ourselves. Until then we do not talk about ourselves, speak in the third person, or use the name: “Mark wants…”, “Jane goes…” This is when the process of building something which psychologists call “ego” (just a Latin word for “Self/I”) is officially started, and for many people this process lasts for as long as they live.
This first semi-conscious “I” also marks the beginning of our (un)conscious drifting away from that which is alive in us – “our” real, essential I.
This is the time when we begin to tie ourselves (that which we think we are) to the products of our brain: ideas, experiences, thoughts… And, consequently, the consciousness of “Self” is rapidly developed. The more we “learn”, the more we get to know fear and other emotions – the unmistakable signs of an already conceived and developing ego.
In time, due to the influence of the family, environment, educational system, our individual interests…, we adopt certain facts and ideas and they make us nationally oriented, religiously determined, culturally versed, and morally accept- able. The more we identify with some national, religious, political, cultural… affiliation, football club, or a street gang … the stronger we react if someone negates or underrates our beliefs, choices, and convictions, because they try to negate and underrate us, our feelings.
All sorts of politicians and authorities from various parties, institutions, and media remind us of our own traditions and historical values, and encourage us to cherish them. So, we follow our own traditions, take pride in our own history, and do the same things ordinary people have been doing from time immemorial: bow to symbols, slavishly use words and names, strictly hold on to their meanings, and thus recognize and define ourselves as “such and such” convinced that it is the only truth in this world.
However, as we have just found out, it is easy to estimate the value of personal consciousness and identity. All you have to do is imagine that you were born and raised in a family of different national, religious… background. Stop being Salman Keser for a few minutes and “become” Vito Pavolini – your entire, present individual consciousness which in (not only) your opinion makes you “defined” or “unique” will become completely different. And, it will still/again be insignificant, meaningless because the essence of your being is unaffected, unchanged.
Personal consciousness is a virtual creation which describes itself – nothing else. Human identity is just a tale, told by an idiot, and full of words signifying nothing. Once you realize that, you can never have “the identity crisis”.
What about thoughts and emotions?
Well, they are inseparable part of self-consciousness, and we have seen that Salman believes that thoughts and emotions make him “human”. And he is not alone in that. There is this famous proposition: “I think, therefore I am (or, I exist)”, and it is also a fact that our lives are subordinated to emotions – we are trained not to experience emotions, but to be emotions: “I am angry!”, “I am sad.”
Thoughts can be viewed as the content of consciousness – the stuff our self-consciousness is made of, and it is obvious that the consciousness of a new-born baby is not the same or of the same quality as the consciousness of a grown man.
This actuality leads us to disambiguation: there is elementary (“new-born baby”) consciousness, and there is personal/self- consciousness. They are two different things.
Some practical examples of the difference are often observed in medical practice: as it is well known, it is possible for someone to suffer a complete memory loss, to survive a stroke and to be left without many functions of “ego consciousness” (speech, recognition, thinking straight…), but they are still in contact with the surroundings – as a new-born baby. This clearly shows that elementary consciousness does not depend on self-consciousness and its contents.
Consciousness exists even without thoughts.
Finally, thoughts come and go, change in accordance with our state of mind, and I always remains the same. Hence, thoughts do not represent the essence of “our” being. It exists even when “we” do not think.
It is the same with emotions. They come, go, change… and I stays the same.{1} Conclusion:
That which is alive or conscious in us is not “a person”. It does not think. It cannot be affected by words, deeds, or behaviour of other people, or by anything else, and so it does not feel anything.
It just IS.
Living a life does not require having identity, convictions, addictions… There are sane and happy people on this planet who do not care about politics, professional sports, organized religion, wealth, fame…
They may believe in life on other planets, that life cannot be explained by mathematical formulas… but do not let their beliefs run their lives or shape their way of thinking.
They also know that words like nationality, ideology, race, religious denomination… are no problem at all, and they cannot be blamed for anything. They are part of, or a result of a conditioned way of thinking generated by the human kind from its earliest days. Those words, by themselves, do not provoke any conflicts, suffering, or wars. The problem is the concepts (filled with emotions and convictions) of those words which people create in their minds. The problem is our attachment to these words and lack of basic knowledge which would tell us: “It is not your (or anybody else’s) identity.” Those are only the outer shells, the labels which ignorant people mistakenly take for their Self. It is useless, or, even worse, feeble-minded to argue or fight with somebody about these things.