For Kristin (She's My Baby)

Referring to the "third collection" I wrote about in the essay "Self Identity and Globalization", Kristin asked me what to do with that third level of self identity. At the time, I was new to thinking about the idea and hadn't really worked out what to do with it, hadn't worked out how recognizing the importance of seeing these different levels or connections really functioned. The real question here is, "How does my history affect where I am in the world right now in such a way that continues to encourage the fulfilling development of my uniquely human potential?" The different parts of the question are important because the way they break down and interact is the answer to this question in the same way that most enduring questions about humanity are answered by delving directly into that humanity.

I'm writing this out this way because I like her unique humanness.

I've talked about the first collection or level as nature--genetics. That's part of our history, part of what ties each of us to humanity as a whole. We usually experience the second collection or level as personality, personal history and also personal description or what tends to be thought of when people say "self identity". (But our selves are so much more than nature, nurture, and history.) We don't really feel vitally alive if we don't get into how that history, how those first two levels of self-identification, affect a sense of fulfilling development. So a big part of that is mindfulness, paying attention to where I am right now, the people and world around me. We can't avoid our way into happiness. If people are going to be happy and feel alive, they have to pay attention. That's how it is. "In such a way", then, means: engagingly, mindfully, vitally, with passion and curiosity, etc. Most people do not connect mindfulness--paying close attention to ANYTHING--as being so closely connected to a sense of vitality, but it is. When we avoid noticing ANYTHING, we shade our selves, our psyches, we diminish the light of our attention. There is no good enough reason to diminish your own spirit. None.

The rest of the process is really about how all the parts of this question tie together. If paying attention to everything about me and everything around me helps me feel alive, how does it continue to support fulfilling development? Because lots of people are paying attention to a lot of stuff but they aren't necessarily very happy about it or fulfilled by it. So we need something more than JUST mindfulness. Since we're thinking beings, it can help to understand. The third level is all about process, fluidity, growth. So the ways that we can describe our history in chunks don't really describe us as living beings. The challenge is to find out how we can flow, feeling connected but not constrained by connection. Because we can only think about so many things at once, it's helpful to have some sort of focus. That's part of why I wrote the essay "Six Aspects". When we are unhappy about something, we can look at where we are and ask ourselves: which of these aspects do I need to be incorporating more directly or completely to be satisfied with what I am doing right now? What am I not seeing in others? There is ALWAYS something that can be done, something more to see. But when people don't learn to think of themselves beyond the first two levels, they can't necessarily see what it is they can do. When we can't know ourselves beyond the first two levels, we think of ourselves as sort of pieced-together-objects and it's hard to fit together the ways people describe us or the ways we describe ourselves with our lived experience. The third level is all about what we do but also what we see, what we are capable of imagining, discovering in ourselves and others, creating, and sharing. We create social reality by what we do; there is no one else to blame whether people want to praise a god or not.

In other words, to have even somewhat accurate self-descriptions, we HAVE TO include our potential, we have to include how we are not only from our families and cultures but how we are fantastic examples of humanity which our families and cultures cannot fully appreciate. Because more growth is always possible, it is impossible to know ourselves by only looking backwards. And because we can't be certain of what will happen in the future, to have accurate self-identities, we have to include a sense of knowing openness. I know that I can grow, I feel it, I am sure of it even though I don't know how I will grow. This is equally important as my genetics and my history, my culture, etc. But most people don't give it equal attention.

The last collection or level has to do with moving beyond the limitations not only found in my personality or my past but those found in humanity as it is currently. If every single person always has room to grow and things they can do in each moment to choose and feel that growth, then the same must be true for us as a whole. In the same way that we don't know the future about our individual growth for sure, we don't know the direction of human growth for sure, but we will not be able to feed into it very strongly if we do not feel openness about humanity. Every religion I've come across has described what I see as openness or potential. Every meditator has felt this openness or potential. We just don't always know how to bring that potential into reality right now, we don't always know how to bring openness into our interactions with one another all the time. But it's possible.

Until now, people as a whole have not seen this possibility as clearly (that's not it--I should say "as comprehensively") as we see it now. So we have all these ways of hinting at potential without necessarily having expert ways of bringing it out. But because we bump elbows and everything else with more people more often than has ever occurred in history, in our past, we run into more of our own possible actions than ever before has occurred. We get new ideas and new feelings from the abundant diversity of interactions IF WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO FEEL OPENNESS. Now, if we don't include intention and agency in how we bump elbows, we can allow genetics and history to set the course, to affect how we interact with one another and how we think of ourselves. But I, for one, believe in the human spirit that history shows as well as the human spirit that has yet to unfold. I am absolutely certain that we have not yet fulfilled our potential, reached our limits, come to understand ourselves. We are shot through with openness from beginning to end. This openness, this space for development and change, characterizes who we are as human probably more than any other single aspect. This has been described as adaptability, as if we are simply the most cunning creatures around. From a first or second-level perspective that is a good enough description. How do I know that description by itself isn't accurate? "Good enough" isn't good enough for me. That's how I am. How are you?