We are going to talk about identity. First, I will ask people: Who are you?
I am me!
Hard question. And this is good.
Who is me? Good extenuating question.
Me is not thee? Ah, but is negative definition real understanding?
A state of focusing consciousness, filtered through a perception honed over time. Ah, sort of ethereal?
An avatar being driven by an avatar of the spirit I call me. Good answer.
Still leaves the question who is me. Is true it does.
Hmmmm, am I the main avatar or just an alt? Valid question, and amusing.
I find that people tend to identify with inherently transitory things. Is this your experience, friends?
Yes, as in appearances.
Just 99.9% of the time.
I get attached to my circumstances.
Yes, appearances are inherently transitory as are circumstances. We don’t know how identified we are with them until they change. What happens when our sense of identity changes?
Disorientation? Fear? Relationships shift. And yet each time don’t we just sort of repeat that cycle?
No fear if I’m willing to change with things. That’s true. Change rather than being self threatening can be self embracing.
I have recently read a good explanation of emotion. We come to identify with emotions very often. One person seeing themselves as angry, the other person seeing themselves as loving in a narrowly defined way. But are all these emotions really sort of connected though we call them very different things?
Yes, and if we cling to only one kind I find it becomes false or fake. It can distort our other emotions, and then we are aware that our identification is weak or mistaken, and get that threatened feeling again.
Refusing to feel something, because of identifying with it not being a part of you, can also cause havoc. Yes, vicious cycle.
So what is this identity we are so worried about?
It seems we need one of some kind for functioning in the world? Sense of self in a given environment? Hmm, but then must we forever see ourselves as mutable? Never to know any peace? If you are in your entirety changeable, than nothing can be allowed to stay still, but nature doesn’t prevent stillness.
Emotions are mutable, but is our essence? You beat me to it.
What if the Buddhists are right, and we’re all headed to one big non-individual state of being. Would that frighten you? It wouldn’t frighten me, but Buddhism doesn’t actually teach we will cease being individuals. It teaches that we shall know unity.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~