Freer Than Thought Itself

The Self

Embodying the role of the “self” involves understanding the dimensions and extensions of who the self is. For the self to have agency in one’s life, the self must flow between the roles of being the observer and the observed. It is the responsibility of the agent to be both reflective and expansive. Remaining in a reflective state leads to stagnation; it is expansion. Conversely, remaining in an expansive state halts the ability for continued growth when reflection is not present. To have agency of the self, the agent must experience through the lens of different dimensions of “who.”

We can consider the self to be present in three forms. Starting in the middle is the “outer” self. The outer is responsive, and the most common form of self to know. Our outer self is perceived; it takes action. Beyond the outer self is a sphere of influence. In this realm, we are simultaneously the influencer and the influenced. Thought and sense travel entangled together, reverberating off each other with every decision an individual makes. The experiences of an individual are simultaneously influenced by and influence the entangled state of being. The decision to go for a walk will generate disparate thoughts than if the agent had chosen to remain sedentary. Moving the body moves the mind.

As our outer self interacts with the sphere, it must remain in contact with the core. An agent’s core is the occupant of the body, observer of the mind, and vessel of the soul. It is who the individual’s consciousness is, the observer of the outer. An agent can find purpose and connection to intuition in the core self. When the core and the outer become entangled, it is difficult to have agency. Indecision and identity confusion may be caused by an entangled self. An individual living only as a perceived being, not as an experiencing being, inhibits the ability for an individual to know the core. The person you are, is not the perception others have of you. Learning to untangle the core from the outer allows for the agent to have clarity of purpose and intuition. Accordingly, an individual can make decisions driven by the core, therefore empowering the outer to construct intuitive and purpose-driven responses and actions. The way each agent experiences reality is formed through collective agreements of perception, innate perceptions, and observed thoughts.

Thought & Sense

Forming from conglomerations of what’s perceived, thoughts establish narratives we both individually and collectively choose to uphold as the “correct” reality. Two people can be in the same car, at the same red light, experiencing totally different states of being. There’s no way to truly know the experience of the person next to you. Left and right run parallel, never crossing paths, infinitely. Sense and thought are not parallel mechanisms. They are entangled.

Thoughts flow on a stream in various ways. Random, repetitive, reliable, resolute, robust, real. Drifting on a stream, awaiting approval, acceptance, entertainment, or denial. Viewing thought as a characteristic of an individual’s experience, gives them a new weight to hold. Personifying thought shows how thought is not the self, but an extension of the self. You are not your thoughts; you are the representative of your thoughts through action and expression. Exercising a thought allows it to come to fruition. Keeping the thought idle maintains the thought’s identity, separate from the observers, as it may not continue to drift on the stream. Thought is confined to itself, behaving as a one-dimensional entity that needs an agent to bring it to life.

Complementing thoughts, are the senses. In other terms, senses are perceptions. The five basic ways an individual perceives the world is through taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound. These senses work together to form scenes and experiences. Though on a slight perceptual delay, sense works to form the present. To be more present, one must to turn to the senses. Emotion ties to the senses like a balloon on a string. If the individual is the one holding the balloon, emotion is the string tethering the balloon to the moment. Emotion aids in cementing memory. Our senses, interwoven between the mind and body, traverse the apertures that allow for life to stumble upon itself.

Agency & Ownership

If thought drifts in and out of the collective conscience, waiting to be captured by an expressive agent, it is bound to its singular existence with no ability to express itself. You are freer than thought itself. Thought, as a characteristic of the “self,” allows the agent to exercise choice in what they represent. When an individual chooses to act upon a thought, they are taking ownership of the thought. The occurrence of thought exists beyond the extension of the self; however, the reception of thought remains within the extension. Ownership of the actions and expressions that are driven by the core self enables an individual’s agency.