.....reflections part 1

Who Are You?

How do I ever truely know that you are the person I think you are?

I know myself.
Well, that is to say, I know myself as far as I can tell from my experience of my thoughts and experiences but how do I know that you are who you say you are?

Ok, at first glances, that isn't very different from what I've been asking lately but I do have a method to this. Let's for a moment ignore any solipsist view of things and look purely at the simplest situation by way of the simplest questions.

How do I know who you are?
Everything that goes towards my forming of an identity for you is generated by your projection of your ideal self. In all but a few cases, there is naturally going to be a disparity between that ideal self and your true self, again ignoring any question of what is self, so how do I, on the outside, know that you are what you say you are? Perhaps more importantly, does it really matter? If my sum total experience of you is that of your ideal self, does the fact that the x% of times when I am not there with you where you are not as you are with me mean that you are not what I think you? If your pretence matches your claims does it matter if you are only like that with me?

Stepping back into the solipsist mind, where nothing exists except in my mind, if my only experience of you is of that pretence, then for all intent purposes, that is you and your existence in my mind. For that matter, it follows that seeing as every experience of you is a singular event, each meeting between you and me is a new one and each encounter creates a new you. In other words, you exist as a series of moments, each moment being a new character with which to refer to but not relate to. Is this the real meaning behind the common saying (or should that be truism?) "people change"?

If each encounter really does create a new you in my mind, should you be so careful about your pretences?

I've said before that I tend to treat everyone based on each moment and I say that without pretence (yes yes, I know...) so why do you feel the need to portray an image of any sort? Why is an image so important? I am not without an image and I have never denied that I have a prefered ideal image of my own so this is a question for myself; why do I carry that image?

I am a person who is comfortable in silence. In fact, I define parts of myself because of my aptitude to stand silence and perhaps even the more extreme examples of nothingness. It is like Painting and drawing and writing. Before you start, you have in front of you a blank piece of paper, a blank canvas or in today's world, a blank screen. There is a pleasing comfort in that perfect emptiness that is hard for one to blemish with what will be imperfect marks. After that initial marking, it will always take a lot of work until it once again becomes something worthy of the ruination of that oh so perfect surface. That is how I feel about nothingness. It is potential to the nth degree, the epitome of possiblities.

So, like I always ask, where does this fit in?
Each encounter creates a new you for me and a new me for you.
Every time we interact, we start from a theoritecal blank canvas. Even if it is not a blank canvas, it is comparable to new paint being slopped over old paint so every time we interact, you have a chance to make better things that went wrong before and perhaps try again in projecting that ideal you. In that respect, it is up to the individual to realise that potential and ultimately to let go of past events. Every time we meet, you are given the opportunity to be someone new and different so why not take that opportunity. Why not actually be different (or should that be better?) instead of just wanting to be different?

You are who you are now.
Who you were then does not exist.

So really, it isn't "live for the now", it is "you live through the now".


published 26th November 2007