I Know I Exist But What Am I Doing Here?

Restless 
by Cecilia Borromeo

It is that perennial immateriality dwelling between living and dying
crouched in the corners and grappling by the hinges
only to remain unseen;
We weave our web of what we believe we understand
of the relationship of our acts and events
only to remain misunderstood;
From that odd wisp of steam of heated discussions
to the urgent hiss of a new page calling;
I teeter on that thin ice --
That single space of uncertainty --
And I ask
“What am I doing here?” 

Who am I and what the hell am I doing on planet Earth?

Is it any wonder humans have little clue to the purpose of their being? I believe most people consider their reason for existence; then, after experiencing futility finding a clear answer, they decide to leave their purpose to fate or to a higher power, hoping that somehow they make a difference. In my mind, too many people blindly exist and that is all.

Yep, I Do Exist

Cogito ergo sum is a philosophical proposition by Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician. The simple meaning of the Latin phrase is that if one is skeptical of existence, that is, in and of itself, proof that he does exist. Descartes (1596—1650) is regarded as the father of modern philosophy for defining this starting point for existence: “I think; therefore I am.”

The proposition became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it was perceived to form a foundation for all knowledge. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception or mistake, the very act of doubting one's own existence arguably serves as proof of the reality of one's own existence, or at least of one's thought.

So, if I believe Descartes (And, I do.), I am real and capable of thinking. Still, the big question remains: "Who am I?" If I have difficulties knowing my own reason for existence, then maybe others can help with descriptions from their own perspectives.

Oh, You Think You Know Me?

But, how well does an individual really know someone else?

In a 1996 article, Dan McAdams, a professor at Northwestern University, asked the following perplexing question: "What do we know when we know a person? What does it take to know a person in a scientific way?" He believed "knowing" someone occurred on three levels. Here is a very simple description of McAdams categorization:

* Level 1 is a description of a person's broad, general traits, such as how shy, outgoing,  intelligent, or warm someone is.

* Level 2 provides a description of an individual's personal concerns -- descriptions of personal strivings, life tasks, strategies of defense and coping, and similar matters that involve the specific times, places, and endeavors of the person's life. 

* Level 3 is summarized in this rather problematic description:

"As one moves from Level 1 to Level 2, one moves from the psychology of the stranger to a more detailed and nuanced description of a flesh-and-blood, in-the-world person, striving to do things over time, situated in place and role, expressing herself or himself in and through strategies, tactics, plans, goals, and so on...So what is missing? The answer stems from the...mindset of...individuals [who] are expected to create selves that develop over time and that define who they are...what is missing is identity." 

Are you confused yet?  According McAdams, a person creates an identity through a process known as "selfing" -- composing one's personality and personal story by weaving together an overall self-definition.

(John D. Mayer. "Three Levels of Knowing a Person." Psychology Today. November 8, 2010)

So, does this mean that I am merely a "story" told by myself? That's it? At best, I create my own purpose for walking the earth that I "tell" others through some narrative self-definition I conjure, and, thus, I "become" just a second-hand biography? If that is so, I am pretty much just a nomad without firm direction and purpose who collects chapters of his "book" to provide others the only "me" that counts. The view of the objective and the subjective is blurred at best.

Drew Gilpin Faust, American historian and President of Harvard, once said ...

"We create ourselves out of the stories we tell about our lives, stories that impose purpose and meaning on experiences that often seem random and discontinuous. As we scrutinize our own past in the effort to explain ourselves to ourselves, we discover - or invent - consistent motivations, characteristic patterns, fundamental values, a sense of self. Fashioned out of memories, our stories become our identities."

 (Drew Gilpin Faust. "Living History." Harvard Magazine. 2003)

Then, if "our stories become our identities," as Faust professes, there is no difference between other  people's interpretations of myself and my true identity. I would assume that this view contends my self-image, self-esteem, and individuality depend upon how I forge my identity in this biographical work. I understand how every person is responsible for his or her own identity; however, I am clueless about how this relates to a higher purpose defining my existence.

At this point, I could say "God provides the direction, and all I have to do is give the reins to Him." I understand this philosophy, too. It speaks of essential faith and belief. In fact, I am able to do this quite frequently, but my id and my ego also fight this auto-pilot approach. "Let it be" is comfortable and reassuring, yet I still wonder about what I am doing with my life.

I hope to be more than the stories I tell and more than the conceptions others form of me. These things do not reveal the real me -- the soul that I possess. I also hope to be aware of my purpose instead of relying strictly upon faith to accomplish it. That's a pretty big order, huh? Let me tell you why I feel this way.

My life, like all others, has been a series of accomplishments and disappointments. I could now write my little book of identity. But, as I live my 63rd year, I feel the pressing need to do more and to find more ... more adventures, more discoveries, more production. I long to discover the purpose of my existence, and I believe I am still capable of adding to something somehow. It's difficult to do that when I can't seem to elevate myself to a purpose, a reason I feel is still in doubt.

Super-ego and Self Insight

 

 

Hey, here's a word or two for the restless and the bored. You are not going to find what you're looking for by playing hour upon hour of video games. You won't find the answer in some text message that flashes onto the screen of your Droid or iPad.

You can hop in your car, drive to the mall, and shop for it all day, but, if you're looking for the real thing, don't waste your time and money. You'll soon find no store can fill your order. No substitute purchase can satisfy your longing.

You might decide to talk with your BBF, your posse, and the person you are "going with" (whatever that means these days). You can analyze, quantify, reason, read your horoscope, or seek advice from psychics until your faculties fray, yet you still will crave more.

You can search the files of eHarmony and Match.com, chat, and hook up with varied types of individuals that share your common interests. You can find your soul mate, build a passionate relationship together rivaling that of Cleopatra and Mark Antony, meticulously plan your marriage, and live a life of romance and contentment with your significant other. Still, you will likely feel that strange restlessness.

You can lovingly conceive child after child, graciously adopt the needy, or fill your life with a dozen souls who grow up with all the trappings of deadbeat dads or baby mamas. Then, you will still realize your answer does not lie in your right to populate your tiny space of the earth with kin.

You can dutifully struggle for the necessities and the luxuries provided by the legal tender. And, you can use that money to surround yourself with the fanciful, expensive "toys" that provide temporary happiness and a perception of higher status. In your enormous, golden crib adorned with all the precious ornaments of wealth, you will still feel the missing piece of your existence.

You can read book after book, watch films until your eyes ache, and immerse yourself in psychology or philosophy or religion, and maybe you'll find a clue or two. Still, most likely, your confusion will continue, possible even increase, as the "whites" and the "blacks" in your mind become one shade of dull, useless grey.

You see, I believe the very fact you were born a unique human being leaves you with only one source for your innermost need. You must look within to come closer to the truth. Most of the answer you seek lies buried somewhere deep within yourself. So deep, in fact, that many people live their entire lives and never find the complete realization. And, some, preferring to conform or remain clueless, never even try.

I believe who you really are is singularly precise and yet very relative to fate. It is precise to your own given makeup -- physical, emotional, and intellectual. And, it is precise in the fact that your decisions of free will are framed in the time and the space that limit your life.

You were born of fate, and you remain vulnerable to the risks of fate until you reach your ultimate mortal demise. If you are lucky, you will have approximately 40,000,000 or so earthly minutes of existence to satisfy any and all of your needs. Perhaps, some of that time might be lived more happily knowing what makes you George, or Betty, or Mohammed.

I believe human beings each have a purpose significant to their existence. I understand the essential needs that all people have for love, shelter, food, and desires for all accessories that make life comfortable and pleasurable. However, I feel many people today have no clue how to find an acceptable answer for the particular need that satisfies the meaning of their existence.

In my mind, the need to justify a good, correct "self" is something that makes relationships, family, wealth, work, and all other things related to meaningful, successful living.

I mourn the decline of interest in developing self insight and the insistence of the masses to develop "right" and "wrong" categories of people based on a bandwagon mentality. I long to see more individuality through the means of self discovery. Maybe some basic psychology can help us find ourselves, or at least consider the "person" in our personality.

Sigmund Said...

We all are aware of Freud's three part structural model of the psyche.

The id is the unorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic, instinctual drives. Id is the only component of personality that is present from birth. It acts according to the "pleasure principle," seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension.
Some might call the id "an unorganized cauldron full of seething excitations.

The ego seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing prolonged grief. So, a person's ego attempts to mediate between id and reality, and it is often obliged to cloak the unconscious commands of the id with its own rationalizations or defense mechanisms such as denial, fantasy, or regression.

The ego could refer to one’s self-esteem, sense of self-worth, or the conscious-thinking self. Somewhere in a child's early development, it begins to be aware of similarities and differences, and it starts to realize the individuality of others and of its own self. This development continues as multiple processes, cognitive function, defenses, and interpersonal skills of the person emerge.

The super-ego comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency that criticizes and prohibits drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions.

The super-ego can be thought of as a conscience that punishes misbehavior with feelings of guilt. For example, for having extra-marital affairs. Taken in this sense, the super-ego is the precedent for the conceptualization of the inner critic or the "inner voice."

Some say that the demands of an individual's super-ego coincide with the precepts of the prevailing cultural super-ego. And, I believe the cultural development of the group and the cultural development of the individual, are always interlocked. But,

According to Freud, the super-ego, the last part of the psyche to develop, begins to emerge at around age five as a person acquires from both parents and society a sense of right and wrong. This development is largely in response to parental punishment and approval -- a result of a child’s internalization of his parents’ moral standards, a process greatly aided by a tendency to identify with the parents.

Then, in time, the super-ego begins to act as a type of inner "parental agency" needed by a person to maintain moral behavior. It continues to develop into young adulthood as a person encounters other admired role models and copes with the rules and regulations of the larger society. The super-ego aims for perfection as it provides guidelines for making judgments.

Yet, with so many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego and superego.

For example, some individuals develop little or no super-ego to restrain their instinctual urges. Their strong id, with its basic drives and urges, dominates their actions without much restraint. These people act out of impulse and seek only self-gratification.

Others might develop too much or too little ego strength, and these individuals with overly strong egos can become too unyielding and disruptive while those with very weak egos become "invisible" and unproductive as they view challenges as something to avoid. Add to this potential for problems that the super-ego's demands often oppose the id’s demands, so the ego sometimes has a hard time in reconciling the two.
And, of course, those who have dominating super-egos tend to have rigid, unbending morals and be too judgmental. They may restrict important feelings, possess needless guilt, and be afraid to compromise any personal opinion or belief.

According to Freud, in a healthy person, the ego is the strongest so that it can satisfy the needs of the id, not upset the superego, and still take into consideration the reality of every situation. And, that is quite a tall order for any individual.


My View

I think the need to identify purpose is a desire that springs from the super-ego. I believe finding an answer or two to "who you are" is crucial to the well-being of an individual. Today, many people do not know how to access their own ideals and comprehend their own sense of spirituality. They seek answers but repeatedly rely upon outside forces to influence any personal decision they must make, which, unfortunately, often feeds a false sense of ego without nourishing their inner core -- their super-ego. 

Self-actualization can lay bare the super-ego and further reveal the framework of a conscience that helps maintain an important inner sense of morality and right. Thorough introspection and a true belief that happiness is personal and lies within our individual souls can guard against taboos as narcissistic satisfaction from the ego. The "I" in life diminishes as one understands his unique spiritual nature.

I believe in love and in family and in a generous society; however, I do not think a person can find sufficient "Who am I?" answers from others. I believe a person must look within to tap his/her own personal gifts and talents that are meant to contribute to a unique, God-given purpose for living. That "little voice" inside can maximize the efforts of godliness within us all. That is why I believe we all should seek it.

In order to do this, a person must trust that spiritual beliefs are not only vital to life after death but also vital to living a fulfilling life. A person without a spiritual purpose who neglects the duty to search for the necessity of his/her own existence will feel significant emptiness. Since I feel everyone has a solitary makeup, I think each person must accept the reality of the spiritual being they find within and cope with understanding how best to employ it.

To me, the search does not necessarily lead to a realization of "who I should be" but rather to a confirmation of "who I am." By looking inside, I feel I better know myself  and have realized many of my biggest faults and my best strengths. I count on my own conception of super-ego to better what I conceive to be my intended purpose, but like all humans, I fall and fail with regularity.

Yet, having done a search for meaning, I try to repent of my egotistical sins and admit honestly my headstrong errors. These are the times I attempt to supplant my ignorant actions with doubled conviction and use my talents to do more good and commit to being the best of "who I am." Somehow, this allows me to accept my faults and go on living.        

I know I am just my imperfect self, yet I understand any modicum of perfection I experience stems directly from the psyche of my spirituality.

U R U Nique

"I am not like anyone else."

I believe and live by these words.

I believe God intends each of us to find purpose and to weave our unique threads into the fabric of humanity. As evidenced in our exclusive fingerprints, we are designed as a singular identity. Yet, our very existence is dependent upon other individuals who provide us sustenance and who nurture our independence. We all are essential pieces of a larger tapestry, and God has given us the free will to devote our particular assets to complete needed temporal works.

I think an adult who waits on an outside stimulus to effect change is stagnant. A human need only look within to find a spark of the purpose for his or her creation. The discovery of self allows us to become "a particular life" with a purposeful existence. In other words, to me, a person's diversity is a gift meant to become a means of strengthening social ties. Having bestowed a "piece of heaven" to every heart, the Maker expects every person to find, interpret, and spread this love to the best of his or her ability.


Many people resist the call. They live their lives believing that a purpose for their life will be clearly ordained by a heavenly source. Their "calling" is stalled or delayed by their own trusting faith and belief in providence. They believe they have to do nothing other than trust in God and good to live productively. Instead, I believe God intends these people to search "from the inside" and transfer their positive energy and action to the community to help insure the essential earthly delivery of the common good.

Many other individuals see their contributions to society to be unnecessary and unrelated to their intended purpose. As these people personally prosper or suffer, they see their lot as righteous earnings or circumstances of fate. They hoard the trappings of their lives in heaping accumulations of fortune or misfortune, and they believer the, themselves, are the engines of their own existence. Instead of discovering and nurturing their attributes to rise above their own greed or pity, they become faithless and introverted.

I have seen people who develop a love of money as a purpose for their lives. They actually believe their greatest gifts are acquisition, power and grandeur. They proudly store and carefully distribute their monetary assets within family bounds except for occasional shows of public generosity given as selfish tax write offs or as indications of their powerful political concerns. Their pride eventually leads to a "love" of money and the desire for all that it can do to make their lives pleasurable.


And, I have seen the exceedingly poor in their stubborn exaltation of "living on the dole" resist many efforts that could better their own independent existence, preferring instead to rant about inequality and poverty as if living in crippling conditions is a proud birthright. These people live their entire lives in a state of obligation to a society kind enough to provide the basics for human existence. Where is their interest in self discovery and their dogged determination to develop unique assets to assist others? They often feel powerless, so they develop weak wills and prejudices against those who have more than they do.

To be fair, I am not condemning the rich or the poor. Instead, I am purposely confronting anyone who has not looked to his or her soul to discover their spin on the planet is not a "free ride." I don't encourage people to attempt to change an individual because I believe the stimulus for action is within a person's own understandings and the key to unlocking the "ticket" that pays for existence lies in the acceptance and application of his or her own individuality.

We must use tolerance to cement our differences and strengthen our respect so that we may explore all possible solutions and, together, find new answers that represent the will to achieve the common good. It is our very difference that serves to unite us to make the work lasting and beautiful -- in the completion of such undertakings, we each see a reflection of ourselves, not standing alone, but standing together in harmony, a reflection from a wonderful construction created through individual gifts bonded by dependency.

We all learn valuable lessons of diversity as we share "building" experiences with each other. Lasting changes are products of cooperation and compromise. The people who effect these changes come from all walks and all backgrounds of life. They have found a voice they know as true, and they have become convinced that their opinions are necessary parts of the blueprints for a solid plan.

I believe too often we proceed with tunnel vision and belittle or ignore, for our own selfish reasons, the smaller voices of truth. Leaders decide that forcing a change is much more efficient than working through compromise, so they resist diverse planning and shrink back into old, accepted patterns of behavior that provide a temporary band aid.

As leaders become convinced they can control the minds of others by force, they can quickly find efforts to funnel humanity through a narrow channel of understanding into a sea of acceptance are fruitless. Forcing a change nearly always produces strong resistance. Bottlenecks develop as individuals discover personal, seemingly valid reasons to resist. And, isn't this just human nature? Force denies importance of self and stifles positive diversity.

If, however, humans are free to become active participants in decision making and are allowed to discover some personal benefit in change, they justify the movement as being "good for them." They willingly accept the possible benefits of the proposition. How many more of these same individuals then put their unique talents into effecting the new course?
I am not like anyone else, nor do I wish to be like anyone else. It is true that I am unique in the world, and this fact can cause me to have feelings of insecurity and loneliness. However, to understand the reason that I continue to breathe good air, I feel the need to develop and share any God-given talents I possess.

I think all humans are alone/together. We desperately need each other, and the only way we can fit all the untold pieces together is to spread love. I feel every human is capable of feeling and giving love. As I better understand how to add my little piece to the puzzle, I know others must fill in missing portions to make a complete, magnificent accomplishment -- a true work of love.

"When we allow ourselves to exist truly and fully,

we sting the world with our vision

and challenge it with our own ways of being." 

- Thomas Moore