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when you strip it all off? Who are you when you peel the layers of skin and flesh and muscle and bone? Who are you when you decay away, left with nothing but the idea of you? Who are you as the time has passed and the version of you is unrecognizable from the time before? Who are you?
A lot of conversations and ideas have floated around my head for quite some time. I wouldn't call these thoughts overwhelming by any sense, but they formed this sense of unease that I can't really shake off. There's this one video by oliSUNvia "to be loved is to be understood, but to be human is to change" that I find so fucking insightful and well written I suggest everyone watch it; yet even then this one thought pervaded, coming from a lot of my thoughts I had before.
That thought I had is directly contrasting to the claim of "to be human is to change". Of course I agree with that argument in part but at the same time it doesn't feel like the full picture. For regardless of my experiences, whether my run ins with failure, the successes I find, the disappointment I cause, I'm not a different person from the person I was before. A simplistic answer would be we don't necessarily change, rather we grow, for the past is as much us as the present moment is us. Therefore, in the context of her video where she claims you lose understanding of a person as that person claims, I would argue you don't lose that understanding as you understand the past them, or one part of them. However, there's another argument I would like to make.
In my eyes, there has to be something unchangeable within myself and every human here which defines us as our human. There's qualities within us that simply will not change, that I can't get a grasp on right now. I guess that unchanging thing is our history as I stated before, or that's the only tangible thing I can truly deem of as unchanging. What has happened in the past can never change and can only be added to, although I still think there's something intangible still left to be unchanging and formative of our identity. While maybe our goals and desires and sufferings may change with time, whats unchanging with them is the fact we always have these goals and desires within us. The first word people would describe this as is the soul.
I know I'm meandering along the lines of personal identity and human identity as a collective or rather what it means to be a human and the idea of the soul, but I find it important because this notion of our identity pervades everything we do. On a personal level, it really feels like I search for love within this connection of this intangible way I am, a part of my nature. It's when Olivia (i assume that's her name) talks about past lovers finally reuniting and still loving or understanding even with how much they might've changed, they still love and/or understand each other on those unchangeables, whether it truly be the unchanging history or something more fundamental. This has actually also helped me understand and accept the use of psychiatric medication too; the thoughts I hold even still do not determine who I am, so if they change that's not a desecration of my identity still.
I can't complete my collective argument right now, I think I will make another blog post specifically on why I believe the human experience does not mesh well with the concept of heaven, but I truly believe that we have a core identity that can not change, and it's this aspect of our being, our soul, that invades every part of our life.
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badassatron bumblebee
i think we choose what and what does not change about ourselves, cause stubbornness can last really, really long! if man chooses to persist in his behaviors whether he realizes his wrongdoings or not , he will, and it becomes an ouroboro. though i'd like to say that this isn't something that is completely rigid, since we can also change against the will, against full awareness that we are shifting colors
people have different definition of what we are. some people believe that who you really are is who you are before you were influenced by the world. really puts some depth into the line, "this isn't you".
but essentially, being you is changing you. the personalities that form after the old one, just like a snake that sheds its skin, is now , that person. regardless if it wasn't the same one as before, that past self doesn't define who you were "originally". actually, there might not even be an original self, our self is the result of change
i've heard that there is a core, a you that cannot be broken no matter what. i don't really believe that though, everyone is susceptible to change if they choose so ..
i'd also like to share a bit of a counterpoint here,
"You are what other people tell you you are"
It could really depend on the situation , so it's not too black and white here. Pride consumes awareness about the identity, so sometimes people's analyzations of you could be , well, your blind self!
Have you heard of the Jahari window? it separates different versions of yourself
There is the open self. Things you know about yourself and things people know about you. Then there's the blind self, traits people observe but traits that you are unaware of. Here comes the hidden self; things you hide from others but know about yourself, and the unknown self. things you and others are unaware of ., about yourself
The Jahari window really brings some realization that we don't know everything about ourself, rather just.. things about ourself. This is why the phrase "Know thyself" is so important, because you fly too close to the sun if you are unaware about your limits. Getting out of your comfort zone allows you to be aware of that, so learning is a pretty important thing to pursue in..
Sometimes, people make an idealized perception of who we are . Whether we hide our true selves from them or not, there are a million different versions of who we are, all in peoples heads . We exist everywhere, just differently.. for example, some people might view a boisterous person as loud and annoying, while the other one might view them as valiant and strong(you know, probably for their raw joy being presented to the public?)
What people think of us is not always true. Some people are simply being haunted by their own narrative and project it onto others.
by badassatron bumblebee; ; Report
vallmo
i dont believe that we all have a soul. i think we are all temporary, what makes us "us" are our personalitys and brains. we all have our own separate personalitys and ways of thinking (as far as we know) but other than that, nothing is really "you". if your brain changes (growing up, mental changes ect) your self also changes and you can never get that back. its all temporary, nothing is inherently "you" except for your brain. most of our experiences arent original either, sure the way we percieve them can be different but the act or thing itself has most likely happened to someone before, just slightly diifferent. and how much of a difference can that really be.
love to hear your opinion on my take!
You are what other people tell you you are. A philosopher who's name I cannot recall that I suspect might be Friedrich Nietzsche although I could be wrong described hell as : "Three people in a room who despise eachother calling eachother names." This is because if someone calls you 'lazy' for a long enough while you believe it.
If you are called a trait for long enough you adopt it. It becomes apart of you.
Your personality, style, everything about you is based off how you grow up.
one is not evil, life shaped them evil. One is not good, life shaped them good.
by Reverie; ; Report
god damn i really agree
by vallmo; ; Report
Sorry I'm late, I think its an interesting thought to view us as ultimately temporary, but I'm confused as to what you mean by nothing is really "you". If I'm defining a soul as the fundamental ideas that make me me and not someone else regardless of change or growth, and you define the brain is that one thing that defines your identity, aren't you defining the brain as my form of a soul? I also have to ask with how our experiences not being original ties into this concept of identity, because even if people share experiences, an identity is built around the collective of experience which no two people share on a close to similar level. We might go through the same experiences, but in different orders, times, and situations, which all change how we interact and as you say perceive them, which makes a larger difference than you think. A very simplistic and unnuanced example would be gifting a burger to someone in need versus someone well off. The action or experience may be the same, but their past experiences heavily dictate what the experience actually means to them, which leads to very different experiences. And what about our pasts? I do mention them as an idea that doesnt change: our history cannot change once it has happened, and I feel like it defines who we are. Our histories are permanent, so doesn't that form our soul in part?
by ust; ; Report
hmm, i have a thought about the last few lines you've said
what has been done cannot be brought back, but i've heard a few times that one can revert back to who they were before. same behaviors, same interests. surely that's possible, right? i mean , you can lead your mindset and behaviors to the way you want it to
we are always changing , i agree with that.. our present will become our past, and our next personalities will lead on to make who we were, are, and will be today
by badassatron bumblebee; ; Report