the i-con
The self is a myth, as no person can stand alone, disconnected from the world and all that created them. And it is only through the awareness of this fundamental truth that we can relinquish the belief and misguided obsession with the self. Self is vulnerable and wanting, yet it remains empty no matter how full. It is nothing but the stuff and beliefs that prop it up. Self has no greater purpose, and so offers no meaningful reward. Although tempting and persuasive, it is thoughtless and destructive, for it lacks the outward expression of care. Self is a shackle to which we become enslaved, draining us of our creativity and humanity. It both corrupts and suppresses, for it thrives on exploitation. Self is a fabrication imposed upon us from birth, a mechanism by which our freedom is denied, our energy sapped, and our intelligence contained. It is a clever, but insidious, lie through which our lives are controlled. If the experience that describes life is to endure, we need to recognise that we are everything but ourselves, and cannot lay claim to who we think we are, nor blame and judge others for how we perceive them to be.
JoeN.
We each have our own story, one that starts before we are born, and it is one that continues to be written throughout our lives, however not by us. Others, of course, feature in that story, and in certain regards they act as co-authors, but although we are clearly the main protagonist in our own unfolding story – in that we are aware of the part we play – that awareness of ourselves is more about witnessing our ongoing experiences rather than directing them.
‘We’, as the person that others recognise, and who ‘we’ are aware of, is a composition made up of a host of variables; our evolutionary heritage and instincts, our genes (which includes our physiology and innate personality), our environment, our upbringing, our education, our experiences, along with all the ongoing stream of influences which shape our beliefs, thoughts, and preferences. We are the sum of all that makes us up, both physically and mentally – and it is those ‘evosocionetics’ which determine who we are.
We do not decide what we’re conscious of, but the substance of our conscious state does inform the brain, upon which it responds, as it does with all the other sensory information it receives. There is no independent controller being created as a result of us being conscious, and although a belief in a self is an understandable interpretation of us being conscious of ourselves, it is irrational to assume that we therefore have autonomy.
Since it is impossible for any of us to ever share the same evosocionetics, we are all unique individuals, just like no two trees are ever going to grow identically. As such, being unique is unavoidable, and therefore of no real significance, because it cannot be otherwise. And who we are is an arbitrary consequence of that host of influences and determinants, which in addition, are the basis for our beliefs and opinions, our biases, our desires and aspirations. Each of those aspects of ourselves can (in theory) be explained, and every action or decision we make is a direct consequence of them.
There are no other factors at work which can override the mechanistic processes that underpin who we each are and how we develop, and subsequently interact with the world. We are simply bound by how we have been fashioned, not by some internal director who can choose how we respond independently to external (and internal) stimuli.
We do not choose what we think, our thoughts simply arise from the combination of our individual evosocionetics and ongoing influences. We are all just a feature of this deterministic universe, and are everything but ourselves.
Once we recognise the reality of our ‘selves’, which does put us in line with how all other organic life functions on the planet, then we will be able to properly see how that belief in the self, and the idea of autonomy, have been used to exploit us all for a very long time.
Liberty is the freedom to respond to our environment, to adapt appropriately to ensure our survival. Trying to preserve our imposed identities and beliefs, traditions and values, denies us that freedom.
Oct 2022