I think what you really are defines what you do and accomplish.
If you think it the other way around, you can come to the conclusion that you are alive. Because you do what you deem necessary and what makes your life worth living. You do all sorts of things, eat, sleep, take showers (hopefully), go to the toilet and if those actions along with everything else you do, define you, then you can define yourself as being alive. So do you feel alive? If the answer is no or if you feel that you could improve it, then there's more to you than your mere actions, thus they really don't define you.
Unless you think in the terms that "if what manifests in reality is what is"(which actually relies on other people's acceptance and recognition of it; if they can notice it too), but then it begs some questions:
- Can a totally paralyzed person be a beautiful person, if he/she is unable to express it?
- What if you accidentally did something horrible, but your intentions were pure and good? Who gets to decide your definition then? Are they right, does that decision define them?
- Who keeps track of all the accomplishments and actions? God? Does he/she/it then define you? If you are the only one keeping track of them, then don't you yourself define you? What use is this definition if you are the only one knowing it?
- What if someone suffered a total memory loss, does his/her accomplishments, overall direction and actions define this person? If you can't remember or perform them every again, what effect do they have then, how do they define you?
- Also doesn't intent precede action? What are the implications of that in relation to a statement: actions define me.
TL;DR: Actions do not define you, you define the actions; You are the one making them.
Every action you do, becomes the past at the instant that action is complete. But your past doesn't define you, not entirely at least, because you can always change your direction. I was once a boy who liked Transformer toys, and I acted on it. I did buy them. It was something that I did; at that point in time I was doing it. So does that define me? Because I no longer buy or even have those toys. I'm not the person I was. So:
- Did those actions define the boy back then?
- Where is this boy?
- What does the definition really define?
- What is the definition exactly? "A boy who likes Transformer toys"?
- Was there more (or less) to this boy than the aforementioned definition, since the boy grew out of it?
There nothing to define: I'm never the "same" person, because I am growing and changing; there's always more, something that breaks the definition.
We are all growing and changing constantly there is really no baseline "you" there's really no overall, complete "you" that is until you are complete i.e. finished = nothing more = dead. That is the only overall direction anyone ever has: "towards completion", "to the definitive end" (if there ever is one, how would I know..?)
Even then you can't really have a definition for it; Your definition changes in relation to your surroundings/to your present situation: when you stand next to an elephant at the zoo, you are small; When you chase a fly, you are huge. You are what you are at any given moment in relation to everything else. You are what you are now.
Overall you are everything you were, in relation to everything you ever knew throughout you whole life. So how do you define that?
TL;DR 2: Since everything is in constant change, including you, there is only few somewhat synonymous definitions I can give you: The experiencer, The contrast to everything else, The significant other and dance partner of life.
Or maybe since you really can't know if there is anything else than your own experience of life, that you are life itself? Personally I myself like to think that life is something greater than me, so the dance partner thing sounds better (despite me having two left feet. Sry life)
No comments:
Post a Comment