I Think Therefor I am…Confused
I read The Illusion of Self in Philosophy and Dream States a few weeks ago and I think the thing we most often get wrong about the self is not ‘what’ it is but when it is. Because I believe the Self runs parallel to time. Specifically, to the Present. So, let’s take a look at time to better understand what I mean.
About the Present
Answer this for yourself: What is the Present? We refer to it as what’s happening right now. Or what’s actively happening. But when is something no longer in the Present? When is it relegated to the past? As you’re reading this article—these paragraphs and sentences—even your reading of these very words, each subsequent word casts the previous one into the past. And now that this paragraph is over, rereading this won’t reproduce this Present; it will create a new one.
That’s not to suggest there’s no value in rereading something. Quite the contrary. Rereading something provides new experiences. Subsequent reads allow us to move deeper and pick up on details that we didn’t notice on our first pass. Did the story change? No, we’re reading from the exact same source. The thing that has changed is us.
After consuming any sort of story or media, we’re no longer the same person we were before absorbing the information. And it doesn’t matter what the subject material is. If we go into a movie with zero expectations and no knowledge of what the story is about, we don't know what we're in for. And if we rewatch it, we no longer possess the knowledge and expectation deficit we had the first time. We may already know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to have a different experience because our own experiences have changed.
This first time experiencing things is your Self and it runs parallel to what we refer to as the Present. The reason it’s so hard for us to define our Self is because as soon as we try, we’re no longer talking about the Present; we’re reflecting on the past—who we were but are no longer.
About Time
All this talk about time, let’s have a look at it, shall we?
I’ll bet the mentioning of time calls to mind a clock, a twenty-four hour day, a month, or maybe even a calendar year. But did you know that none of these things accurately measure what they represent?
Imagine your vehicle having a speedometer that indicated 'Slow,' 'Average,' and 'Fast' for your rates of movement. You get pulled over one day and the officer tells you, “Eh, it looked like you were going too fast.” The next day you’re pulled over again by a different officer, “Eh, it looked like you were going too slow.” But both days you were driving in your ‘Average’ range.
The point here is that this is what our time measuring devices tell us, “Okay, looks like about a day has passed” and “Eh, looks like you’ve completed a lap around the sun.”
And here’s why they’re approximations:
A calendar year—a single trip around the sun—takes 365.242189 days. This ‘.242178’ means that our calendar is off by approximately one day every four years and is the reason we need to include a leap year. And we have a similar issue with a 24-hour day because earth’s rotation varies. As of writing this, today’s length or the time it takes earth to make a single revolution is 23.9999998461 hours. Sometimes it’s more; sometimes it’s less.
So, we have a fuzzy understanding of time and Time has an interesting relationship with us.
Consider the Hourglass
Let’s consider one’s lifespan as a giant hourglass, where it measures not an hour but one’s entire life. The grains yet to fall are your future, those falling, your past. So, both the Present and our sense of Self are the grains passing between the two spaces at the glass’ smallest constriction. In an instant, they fall into the past, never to be reclaimed.
The reason it’s so hard for us to define our ‘self’ is because as soon as we try, we’re no longer talking about the present; we’re reflecting on the past—who we were but are no longer.
I’m often baffled by others’ fighting to change something that exists among these Present Grains, not realizing this space is ever in flux. The time in a day isn’t even consistent, so why do we seek change when change is constant—inevitable?
It’s consistency that’s the illusion.
If you dive into neuroscience, you’ll find a number of additional things we have labels for but are just other approximations like our clock and calendar. To this day, 28 November 2023, our leaders in all things brain-science can’t point to the human brain and tell you where consciousness resides.
We find ourselves in a strange time. Many of us trying to grasp who we are or define our Self by whatever we want to be identified alongside. But this grasping...
I’d like you to try an experiment. It can be thought based or a live exercise—dealer’s choice. Go to a standing body of (non-frozen) water, then reach into it and wrap your hands around the water like you’re taking hold of a rope. Got it? Okay, now drag all of that water out of its resting place using this ‘rope.’
What happened? I’m guessing all the water squeezed from your grasp and you came out with little more than wet hands. Congratulations. You’ve successfully tried to grasp the Self.
If that’s not what happened, then you’ve got some explaining to do!
Okay, so we’ve established how fleeting the Self is. It’s not something that you can grasp when dealing with your own, so none of us can begin to comprehend one that belongs to someone else. And with change being constant—inevitable—I think what we should focus on is who we want to become, which is equally ungraspable but gives us a positive direction for our Self/Present to transition through.
Taking Charge of Your Self
I’ll leave you with some food for thought and while the Present and future Selfs were ungraspable, this challenge is something you can absolutely own. But attainability doesn’t make it easy. Or easier for that matter.
My suggestion is something that many would automatically dismiss as blasphemous, but that doesn’t make it less true. While, I’m not going to provide a straightforward answer, I will provide you with enough information to reach the conclusion yourself.
After all, answers are worthless without the journey to find them.
So, consider this: You want to take more control over some part of your Self/Present.
The Self is not something that you can grasp when dealing with your own, so none of us can begin to comprehend one that belongs to someone else.
No matter what you consume or what you surround yourself with, they all have an influence on you in some way. And there are some positions that people take where they outright label themselves as Influencer. With a title or job description that literally entails changing the view or behaviors of another person...who’s interests are best served in that arrangement? If you buy something from an Influencer, are you certain you did so in accordance with your own wants/needs? Or perhaps it was because of some outside influence?
Beware influence, friend.
I want You to be your best you as much as You do, but aside from some medical/mental health issue—which would necessitate professional assistance—the person best suited to help You shape your Self is You. And there are two main components that are applying pressure and making adjustments to your Self. Here’s what that looks like:
