In order to look for the genesis of self, we wanted to know what we were looking for. We wanted to start with a working definition of the self.
Our first attempts reflected a very familiar pattern when we come to writing in general and when constructing a definition in particular. As students say it, "I know what I want to say. I just don’t know how to say it." When we examine that statement more fully, generally we find that the true expression of this confusion sounds more like this: "I know how I feel. I just can't find the words to say it." This phrase can enlighten us a little in understanding how a meaning perspective can work.
We feel something very powerfully, and the very power and intuitive sense of that feeling causes us to act on that feeling. Such feelings do not encourage, actually rather discourage, any reflection on the feeling, any attempt to take the feeling and turn it into coherent thought or language. Even to try to do that would expose the feeling to reflection and examination. Turning a feeling into language often does that. We all believed almost instinctively we knew what a self meant, but we didn't think it. We felt it. Our meaning perspectives got in the way and tried to keep us from seeing beyond that perspective's limits of the self.
Our first attempts at definition tended toward the circular: "My self is who I am." Then the question becomes, "What is who you are?" The answer to that says, "I am my self." Another try worked like this: "My self is my identity." When we ask the next question, "What is your identity?" we answer, "My identity is my self." Such definitional attempts work well enough in algebra: if A = B then B=A. It doesn't help us understand the nature of the self or any other word. Our answers remain about our individual and isolated feelings alone.
When searching for or constructing a definition, we asked what we needed to say. Generally, we can see what something is by what that thing does. We need verbs. The self exists. We all agreed to that. If it didn't exist, it wouldn't need defining. It must exist independently, as a separate entity, so our definition had to make that independent nature of the self clear otherwise we would define something other than an individual being which was what we sought. The self exists: What does this entity do, we asked. It eats and sleeps and goes to work. It loves. It hates. It has fun. It gets angry. It laughs. It cries. So the self as a definable, independent entity exists to act. In order to act, it must perceive the world around it, take information from that world, use that information to choose how to act in the world, and act on that choice. After some other discussion, we added that the self must do all these things freely. If not freely, it loses independence and instead of an independent entity we have an instrument used by some other force; an object of manipulation not an independent being. In that sense coercion of any kind stands in direct opposition to the self.
In the end, we came up with this:
The self exists as a conscious, independent entity which perceives the world, takes information from that perception, learns from that information, makes choices based on that learning, and acts freely on those choices. The self experiences the results of those choices, accepts the responsibility of those choices and results, and the process begins again.
However, the self doesn't spring into existence all by itself. It comes from a process of growing and interacting with the world around it. That process we wanted to look at next. In some sense, we found simply continued our question about ourselves. Why do we choose fear when we go to an interview which is all about our self? What's wrong with us, and when did we learn it?