Identification, Part 1

The theme for today is (A brief look at) Identification

It's a word for a very complex type of process
but I like root of its word meaning history:
"over and over" or "again and again"

because it takes us back to the primal act
of contemplation
what is this?
who am I?

We have to keep asking
over and over

because real entities aren't like numbers,
eternally the same

Who am I (or anyone)
as a pattern that changes over time?
Aspects of it come and go

I don't think this can be answered
(or would be satisfying to answer)
in a philosophical sense

But it does give hints about looking.

Consider the feeling of
"I'm not myself today"
An aspect of my experience comes and goes
it might seem really close
even "inside"
but it is not "me"

Suppose I have a pain
but it wasn't always there
So that's not "me".

Some aspects of experience seem not to change
there's a sense of "always that way"
so it's part of identity, who one "is"
But it is still a "seeming"
We might believe it is __possible__ for it to be different
then it's not a facet of identity


Identification (with respect to a sense of self)
is about the things that seem that they don't change.


The other end of the question of how things "are"
is how they got to be this way
how did I get to be this particular way?

One answer is
we were formed,
and actively worked at that forming
as a cooperative endeavor
of an emerging self and the world
of "things" and other selves.

There are events, experiences,
or perhaps long processes of learning
that change one's sense of self.

Looking at myself in the present moment
reveals traces of those changes
and "I" wouldn't be who I am today
without them.

The formation of "self"
takes place at the edge of possibility
where it tips over into actuality
and that's a very uncertain
and alive spot

but one at which we don't fully comprehend
what is going on

awareness is incomplete in the moment
memory helps
I might remember
that what seems "always the same" now
wasn't always.

Can we take this to our specific, lived experience?
Can we "catch it in the act"?

What are some examples of "identification"
in the sense of something seeming part of
or not part of
I (as I experience)
or Me (as I think OF myself)
or "My Self"?

What seems "over and over"?
What seems like it is changing, or might change,
or that I want to change?

How does the "seeming" itself change?