The Essence of Self
We are born without any awareness of our Self. Neurologically we are born one year early, which is due to our head being enormous and simply not fitting through the birth canal. Only in our third year do we start developing our pursuit of autonomy. Here our journey starts.
The main question of adolescence — if not life — is „Who Am I?“.
Mostly people feel quite stressed about this issue in younger years. They calm down — at least to the outside — with age. This might be a consequence of having had enough experience with one’s own behavior in different situations as necessary to draw a picture.
The knowledge we gain about ourselves is more like a clairvoyant power of how our spontaneous reactions in a certain situation are and which emotions might be likely to arise. We get to know the patterns of our assessments: What we like, what we don’t, what we fear, what we’re excited about.
Neurological responses to environmental influences — Water Slide? Fun! — are encoded in the genes. Of course also our conditioning plays a pivotal role in the firing pattern of our neurons.
The knowledge about the presumable reactions that our body produces involuntarily and a positively shifted notion of our outer perception are tied together to form the imagination of our true Self.
We tend to think that our mind knows everything that is going on, but actually our consciousness is just made to co-handle stimuli, establish pattern recognition mechanisms and conduct non-repetitive actions. The mind is not made to steer any physiological process or to decide how to react spontaneously. Therefore what happens in the mind is never the whole truth about our Self. For this aspect I’d like to postulate that the subconscious is a part of the body. The mind on the other hand I’d like to define as all thinking which we are able to control. Things we „perceive“ are in my opinion messages from the body and our subconscious that are sent to the mind to trigger action.
The mind is programmed to delegate standard patterns (e.g. breathing) to the subconscious for energy saving reasons. Likewise every repetitive action will be referred to the subconscious, whereas in case of any unexpected incident the subconscious alarms the conscious mind to take over actions.
And now emotions come in.
Emotions are the outcome of complex calculations performed by the subconscious. The subconscious assess situations in a way our line of thought could never do it and produces emotions to tell the mind how to act on the occurrence. Depending on the emotional strength the channel to the limbic system is opened, allowing our neurons to form strong associations and memories. On the other hand, if we retrieve memories from this system, the feelings we used to save them might come up again as well. The feeling is the gatekeeper in both directions and we are a warehouse of patterns and memories.
How does our environment influence our Self?
Our subconscious has the function to analyze the surroundings for potential dangers, food and reproduction. In my opinion also belonging and connection are serious aims for us as connection is a survival advantage. Here the question „What Do Others Think About Me“ becomes of relevance.
When we „get to know“ somebody we actually decipher the patterns that underlie the other person’s assessments. When we have reached the status of being able to predict certain reactions, we might say we „know“ that person. Our knowledge is nothing more than the ability of predicting behavior.
To make somebody like you, you just have to make the person have positive associations with you. When we are at the point of having a clue about the assessment patterns of a person, we can modify our behavior to produce positive emotions in our counterpart. As long as we lack the knowledge we use trial and error with triggers we’ve made the best experiences with and see if we can draw conclusions on underlying patterns.
Once you’ve deciphered the main patterns of a person, you start realizing small details that might annoy you, which have been filtered out by your perceptive system due to capacity shortage in the mind. Thanks subconscious for spam-protection.
What we see of other people and even what we see of ourselves is always an assumption based on our perception of the outcomes (comp. Plato).
We cannot expect other people to know how we are feeling, if we don’t show it. What they see is always a projection. They never see the true triggers for feelings how our body experiences them. They might, however, anticipate how we are feeling if they know our weak spots.
We also never know if we have succeeded in provoking positive associations with ourselves in others. We’re dependent on feedback.
The crucial thing here is to understand that every human has a slightly different software (subconscious).
When thinking about ourselves, the same neurons are activated as if we would think about a counterpart. Why is that? My assumption is that it’s the same process. When we’re thinking about ourselves we’re thinking about our own subconscious assessment patterns. The same thing happens when we’re analyzing someone else. We’re drawing conclusions on patterns from outcomes triggered by certain inputs. Hence „thinking about a personality“ is filling the gap between input and outcome. Sometimes we make wrong assumptions. Becoming aware of that is called disenchantment.
This all sounds like a passive and involuntarily process, but it’s not. We’re taking huge efforts to produce certain pattern assumptions in others so they would rate our motives positively. This is not a bad and manipulative thing. This is what is called „resonance“. We resonate with others when our expectations about each other align.
We can spot this especially when we change environments. Sometimes when we move to a different city we somehow become a totally different person. This is a consequence of being exposed to new expectations from others and the lack of assumptions already made about one’s own behavioral patterns. When nobody knows us, in the first time you’re gonna miss the „resonance“ as there is none who really knows you, neither is there anybody you know. „Resonance“ is the procedural form of connection.
Our own patterns as well as our identity are stabilized by the net of expectations that are placed on us. It’s easier to completely shift personality and changing patterns when no expectations are placed on you, when there’s a blank space you can write on. Use the momentum!
Instead of telling people „everything you thought of me is wrong“ we tend to live up to the expectations at least to a certain degree. And different expectations also produce different reactions, so our general behavior might change. This is to produce an advantageous adaptation of oneself to the surroundings.
As our life gets less turbulent and some irrevocable decisions are made, we find ourselves on a certain track which gives us a clue about what kind of person we are (probably in comparison to who we are not). The loss of options brings the feeling of determination which can be mistaken for identity. When you decide to be a firefighter this becomes part of yourself. You might even introduce yourself as a firefighter to new people.
Identity also stabilizes because you surround yourself with people who are likely to support you. We look for an environment that stabilizes us and that share the same views of the world.
Somehow we don’t get rid of the feeling that we have „created“ this identity we think we have instead of it naturally occuring; but what is the pure and pristine identity?
Maybe we haven’t even created this identity by ourselves. Maybe it was forced upon us by our environment.
Our identity is something that is characterising for ourselves (distinguishing), but also beneficial, because identity is a decision. We would probably decide to change when our identity brings us nothing but pain. That’s why we tend to live up to expectations. We suspect an advantage for ourselves and avoid working against resistance. Hence identity is fluid and adapts to the environment. In new environments we’re probably outnumbered as we’re not part of the system yet. Therefore we need to adapt.
Our Self is stabilized by our environment. Everyone who is putting expectations on us stabilizes who we are. With time we form a net. In ideal circumstances all the expectations reflect how we see or want to see ourselves.
