When this question appears in your consciousness, in nine letters and a single punctuation mark, here black on a white background, what could the answer be?
How would you describe yourself to someone else, when you don’t know anything about that person?
What can we know about someone we don’t, as my grandma would have said, “Know from Adam,” or, I might add, “from Eve.”
Well, my first thought is that they are likely a human. They could also be an algorithm. Right now, I don’t want to answer the algorithm. So I am going to give an answer that I have been giving for about 30 years, that predates “the algorithm.” I am a grounded, mystical, intellectual. When I visited Hawaii earlier this year, the tour guide said one word was all he had. He was adventurous.
Who are you, though?
What is your personal response?
Recently, I listened to an interview of author Manda Scott by philosopher Andrea Hiott. They explored the idea of a heart-mind. But I experience myself as a body-heart-mind. Interesting that grounded matches to body. I love being in nature. I live in a rural area where I can garden and walk in the woods.
Heart matches with mystical, that knowing that we are all part of each other, and that separations and boundaries are for the convenience of complexity. Complexity is just a way for the great consciousness of everything to explore and avoid boredom.
And intellectual matches with mind. Intellectual simply refers to my interests. I have always been a reader. I have studied religions, ancient and modern, ancient history, many areas of science (Marie Curie was my childhood inspiration), and meeting people from different cultures. Also, I actually enjoy thinking. I acknowledge that most people enjoy the freedom from having to think. They would likely not consider themselves intellectuals.
Going back to the tour guide’s simple one word answer, it also encompasses body, heart and mind. Planning (involves the mind) risk and excitement for the body thrills the heart.
Over the last 30 years, I have been working on creating a simple method that can be used by any interested person to practice thinking more clearly. Thinking more clearly about who you are and what you value is the foundation of figuring out how to get your personal objects of desire, whether they are material or social goods. Maybe some of you have bought into the idea, which has been promoted by both Eastern and Western cultures, that happiness is about wanting what you have, or even wanting nothing. That’s ok. It’s not easy to do. It requires careful work.
Would you want to do think more clearly? How might it benefit you to think more clearly? Do you even believe you can learn to think more clearly?
Have you ever done something you regretted? Have you thought about how that happened? Maybe you are a follower of Nietzsche, and love your fate. That’s fine. I can embrace that at times. Certainly, mistakes teach us. In some level of reality, there are no mistakes. But for me, embracing my fate means working to help myself and others stand up to the moment in an inspiring way, to the degree that I can.
But who cares how we define ourselves, or if we do so at all?
Well, Socrates did. So did the poet Mary Oliver. She asked us:
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
When the end comes, greater fulfillment will accompany those who bothered to find an answer. To get a useful answer, you kind of have to:
- Believe that you can learn and grow.
- Know who you are.
What is the point of this exercise?
Can you define or describe yourself without invoking any of the usual things most of us think of first? Those are our relationships. careers, professions, and our positions in society, etc. Can you frame your description on the foundation that all humans have ancestors and a place in some society? Focus instead on “What makes you uniquely you?”
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