What makes you who you are? How do you define your self?

How do you define your self?

Your identity, your You.

Who are you!?


I suppose we each define ourselves in various ways that may differ.


But how do you do it?

A balance of nature and nurture.

What specifically defines what you call self?


Is it your choices?

Is it by your accomplishments?

Is it purely by your genetics, or by your feelings?


I am as I am.

I struggle to define it in words.

But in my mind and heart, it is clear as water.


I am a Man.

A resident of Earth.

A son of the Almighty!!!


Are you limited in awareness at the biological level?


What are the boundaries of your self?

How do you decide what's a part of you?

Does your self stop at your fingertips?


Or are you contained within your brain?


Are you even real?


What makes you who you are?

A meatsock that thinks ''maybe''..

edit. Or at least is deluded that it thinks. And even then, could that delusion just be delusion and even then might there not be some thing here that can be deluded in the first place?

originally posted by: BingoMcGoof
A meatsock that thinks ''maybe''..

edit. Or at least is deluded that it thinks. And even then, could that delusion just be delusion and even then might there not be some thing here that can be deluded in the first place?

LOL Bingo you are such a Cynic mate .

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

Who are we Really ?

We are who people think we are .

We are who we see ourselves as .

and then we are who we truly are on the inside.

That vulnerable exposed scared version of our-self that we fight so hard to keep hidden . It comes out during Sex , It comes out during Life and Death Situations and it comes out in our dreams .

We get but brief glimpses of who we truly are ..... It's like our instincts , it's so hard to listen for our instincts over all the other noise in our mind . Our instinctual self is our true self, Meditation really helps to develop our inner self.

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

Just a soul using a body. I will move on. Someday!

If you really want to do some real no BS introspection, the spirit molecule can help.

However, best to be armed with the sword of faith and the shield of knowledge...

You are only as sick as your secrets....

a reply to: asabuvsobelow

I can't deny it. Mature adults warned me about studying existential philosophy when I was young but I paid them little mind.

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

Too many questions.

You're gonna put me in an existentialist k-hole.

And if I'm gonna go that route, can I just steal Tool's words?

...we are choosing to be here, right now
Hold on, stay inside
This holy reality
This holy experience
Choosing to be here in

This body, this body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me
Feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion

Alive

ETA:

Though I differ slightly on the interpretation of "feeling eternal" and the body is just a vessel part. I choose to emphasize the here and now as the holy experience. The gift being getting to exist and having temporary consciousness. And winning a lottery therein by my one consciousness not being attached to a Pfizer macaque or something.

I may have a slightly biased interpretation. As I hijacked concepts from Buddhism (Anatman) that make the "eternal essence" more a "samsara" type thing. The "pain as an illusion" part more duhkha related.

Maybe a web of collective experience. Not alone being more related to others sharing you're experience with their own one consciousness.

Still really like it though.

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

What i do know is, is that we're all here on this blue dot waiting. Earth is one big waiting room.

The Other Place is IT.

I am the one and only me.

Nobody I'd rather be.

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

Right now I define you as a person of many questions.

And myself as a person who avoids talking about himself.

I enjoy the quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj ...

"Love says 'I am everything'. Wisdom says 'I am nothing'. Between the two, my life flows".

Its when our wisdom says "I am man" or "I am the son of the almighty" that we continue to manifest from those desires back into the material realms. Experiencing great sorrow as that self is snuffed out time and time again.

If it be job choice between .. 1/ Sisyphus rolling an immense boulder up a hill. Only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Or 2/ Enlightenment, whatever that may mean.

Which job would I take, the known or unknown?

a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

I believe that we will always be the person that we were born to be, just not exactly the same. Our soul does not change. Only aspects of our personality, due to life's experiences, circumstances, and choices we make.

Unfortunately every contemplation, answer, idea, feeling, philosophy, religion, deity are stepping stones to what your question is. It is like each one chips away at stone revealing what the totality of being is but it is never articulated.

Doesn’t mean I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating just as all of you getting frustrated/crazy in the process

I define myself by the rules I made for myself. For me, they trump all other rules imposed by governments or faith or family.

I won't be so pedantic as to list my rules, but I will say that they are based upon the precept that whatever fate has befallen me -- for the better or worse -- has been entirely my responsibility. "Fault" doesn't matter, and is almost impossible to measure.

So somewhere in the long ago, I decided to be a certain person and created rules to govern that person. For me, that was the point where I was set free.

I am...Who i am.....


All the best to all you you's out there

originally posted by: tinkerbell99
a reply to: BrotherKinsMan

I believe that we will always be the person that we were born to be, just not exactly the same. Our soul does not change. Only aspects of our personality, due to life's experiences, circumstances, and choices we make.

I like this.

We are what we make ourselves. Us and only us.

Keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting what you're getting

What makes you who you are? How do you define your self?

Just one Day at A Time.