"The unexamined life is not worth living" - Socrates
The only thing I've ever really believed about defining
myself until recently is that there's no point in trying to. If anyone else
tries to define me; it defines them more than myself. I am me, right now. I
might be a different version of me tomorrow but that doesn't matter until
tomorrow.
Which is completely idiotic in my view now and I'll explain why. The first sentence of that statement "The only thing I've ever really believed about defining myself until recently is that there's no point in trying to." will be the first piece of this I'll be exploring.
Breakdown of Sentence 1
Which is completely idiotic in my view now and I'll explain why. The first sentence of that statement "The only thing I've ever really believed about defining myself until recently is that there's no point in trying to." will be the first piece of this I'll be exploring.
The dictionary
definition of the word 'define' as a verb is:
1. State or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of.
2. Give the meaning of (a word or phrase), esp. in a dictionary.
1. State or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of.
2. Give the meaning of (a word or phrase), esp. in a dictionary.
But how do you state or describe the nature or meaning of a
person? It's probably best to start by trying to define yourself. Who knows you
better than yourself right?
To define yourself can mean multiple things. Sometimes you need to sit down and reflect on where you are, where you've come from and where you're going. Then decide where you want to be in conjunction with the direction you're taking from your current position. That's what I'm trying to do right now and why I'm writing this article.
To do that you would need to be able to understand what it is to define. What about your life do you define yourself by? Intentions? Experience? Accomplishment?
To help us answer that question we need to ask another: How then do you define an action, intention or experience to be either positive or negative?
It's safe to say that without question our morals, rules and accomplishments are all defined by past experience. Since we have no power to see the future, how could we possibly begin to define it? In conclusion, to truly define something it would surely have to be defined in the present. If we have concluded that only the present can be defined the question still stands: What do you define about the present to define yourself as you are right now?
I would say the only way to define any person is by the collective and increasing experiences, as a verb, they have had up until the current moment. This would mean that the definition of a person would be perpetually evolving as they continue to experience.
When defining an experience however, would you define the action taken or the intent of the action made? An issue I'm sure at least once in your life. This happens in the old cartoon 'Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner' all the time. Wile E. Coyote will set a trap with an intention to harm Road Runner, this ends a complete different way as intended and usually results in poor Wile E. Coyote harming himself. The situation can be flipped, you may have made a decision with the best intentions and it all ended badly.
To move onto the 2nd sentence in my initial statement: "If anyone else tries to define me; it defines them more than myself."
You can define yourself by your own experiences, how could you define another person? Put quite bluntly, based on what I've already discussed, you can't. Unless you can 100% fully empathize with every experience in another person's life it's absolutely impossible. Even if you share a single experience with someone, watching a film for example, you could never empathize with the way the other person is feeling because different images on screen may trigger different emotional responses which will affect the experiences. The experience of watching the film would be shared to an extent but never fully.
It's also interesting when you add the idea of a 'Higher Being'. Would the assumedly omnipresent and all knowing be able to define you? Even if they were omnipotent it would be impossible for them to empathize with your experience. You can be all knowing, but you would not know what it was like to not be all knowing. This was a point made to me on the topic of an omnipotent being by Joe Davine when we had a brief discussion on what it means to define a person.
Moving on to a brief evaluation of the 3rd sentence in my initial statement "I am me, right now. I might be a different version of me tomorrow but that doesn't matter until tomorrow."
I feel like this is half right, half wrong. The statement in its entirety I feel is very nice until the we get to "but that doesn't matter until tomorrow". You are who you are, that's a fact. You may in fact be a completely different version of yourself tomorrow if you think of what experiences you could potentially go through today. Those experiences could help you to redefine yourself consciously or not.
This last section of this article will be a little more driven by personal opinion and based on my own experiences. My problem with not caring about tomorrow is that hindsight is a wonderful thing. You might not care about tomorrow, today. You will however care about yesterday, tomorrow.
There are some things you can change, the past isn't one of them. This article began as a journey of self discovery and I'm not sure if I'm even any closer to discovering who or what I am or even how to define it but I'm trying because I care about tomorrow. The future is dependent on your past experiences leading your present decisions to your future.
To conclude, defining yourself isn't easy. I've been trying to define myself and understand what makes me who I am for a while now and all I've came up with is this. To define yourself you would need to draw on past experiences, future intentions and what you're doing about it right now. Look into your interests. Look into the experiences you continue to pursue. You can define yourself by looking at what you want for the future right now. You can't define the future but you can define how you feel about the future right now and that may give insight into who you are and who you want to be.
It's been very interesting writing this and I've explored a lot of ideas I'm 100% sure aren't new but I feel like after taking some time out to reflect on these things I've helped to understand myself a little bit better. Thank you for reading if you didn't just skip to this point (you cheeky monkey). I know it's not something I would usually write about but I feel like it was something worth doing for myself.
To define yourself can mean multiple things. Sometimes you need to sit down and reflect on where you are, where you've come from and where you're going. Then decide where you want to be in conjunction with the direction you're taking from your current position. That's what I'm trying to do right now and why I'm writing this article.
To do that you would need to be able to understand what it is to define. What about your life do you define yourself by? Intentions? Experience? Accomplishment?
To help us answer that question we need to ask another: How then do you define an action, intention or experience to be either positive or negative?
It's safe to say that without question our morals, rules and accomplishments are all defined by past experience. Since we have no power to see the future, how could we possibly begin to define it? In conclusion, to truly define something it would surely have to be defined in the present. If we have concluded that only the present can be defined the question still stands: What do you define about the present to define yourself as you are right now?
I would say the only way to define any person is by the collective and increasing experiences, as a verb, they have had up until the current moment. This would mean that the definition of a person would be perpetually evolving as they continue to experience.
When defining an experience however, would you define the action taken or the intent of the action made? An issue I'm sure at least once in your life. This happens in the old cartoon 'Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner' all the time. Wile E. Coyote will set a trap with an intention to harm Road Runner, this ends a complete different way as intended and usually results in poor Wile E. Coyote harming himself. The situation can be flipped, you may have made a decision with the best intentions and it all ended badly.
Breakdown of Sentence 2
To move onto the 2nd sentence in my initial statement: "If anyone else tries to define me; it defines them more than myself."
You can define yourself by your own experiences, how could you define another person? Put quite bluntly, based on what I've already discussed, you can't. Unless you can 100% fully empathize with every experience in another person's life it's absolutely impossible. Even if you share a single experience with someone, watching a film for example, you could never empathize with the way the other person is feeling because different images on screen may trigger different emotional responses which will affect the experiences. The experience of watching the film would be shared to an extent but never fully.
It's also interesting when you add the idea of a 'Higher Being'. Would the assumedly omnipresent and all knowing be able to define you? Even if they were omnipotent it would be impossible for them to empathize with your experience. You can be all knowing, but you would not know what it was like to not be all knowing. This was a point made to me on the topic of an omnipotent being by Joe Davine when we had a brief discussion on what it means to define a person.
Breakdown of Sentence 3
Moving on to a brief evaluation of the 3rd sentence in my initial statement "I am me, right now. I might be a different version of me tomorrow but that doesn't matter until tomorrow."
I feel like this is half right, half wrong. The statement in its entirety I feel is very nice until the we get to "but that doesn't matter until tomorrow". You are who you are, that's a fact. You may in fact be a completely different version of yourself tomorrow if you think of what experiences you could potentially go through today. Those experiences could help you to redefine yourself consciously or not.
This last section of this article will be a little more driven by personal opinion and based on my own experiences. My problem with not caring about tomorrow is that hindsight is a wonderful thing. You might not care about tomorrow, today. You will however care about yesterday, tomorrow.
There are some things you can change, the past isn't one of them. This article began as a journey of self discovery and I'm not sure if I'm even any closer to discovering who or what I am or even how to define it but I'm trying because I care about tomorrow. The future is dependent on your past experiences leading your present decisions to your future.
Conclusion
To conclude, defining yourself isn't easy. I've been trying to define myself and understand what makes me who I am for a while now and all I've came up with is this. To define yourself you would need to draw on past experiences, future intentions and what you're doing about it right now. Look into your interests. Look into the experiences you continue to pursue. You can define yourself by looking at what you want for the future right now. You can't define the future but you can define how you feel about the future right now and that may give insight into who you are and who you want to be.
It's been very interesting writing this and I've explored a lot of ideas I'm 100% sure aren't new but I feel like after taking some time out to reflect on these things I've helped to understand myself a little bit better. Thank you for reading if you didn't just skip to this point (you cheeky monkey). I know it's not something I would usually write about but I feel like it was something worth doing for myself.
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