Before I compare myself to a puddle, who am I?

By Kentaro Regan

First of all, who am I? There are probably a million words that could be used to describe me, youthful, intelligent, crazy, energetic, calm, humorous, serious, honest, deceptive, lame, cool, stupid, crafty. Many of these words don’t mean anything, words are figments of our imagination after all, they mean what we want them to mean and are interpreted how we want them to be interpreted, both completely true, yet never true enough. The words of course possess meaning, they don’t hold insignificance especially in passive and casual conversation, daily use, without a thought. We need words, words are necessary that much is certain, as certain as certain is when you don’t think enough about it. 

Who am I? It probably depends on my mood, on the time, on the situation, on hundreds of external factors, or internal factors created by external factors, or internal factors with no real influence but just spontaneous. On one point I can completely dissolve into depression, listlessness, apathy, catharsis, sadness, laziness, exhaustion, annoyance, anxiety, annoyed anxiety, the feeling of having energy in your limbs but none in your head, in the space inside your head, but not your brain, because there is nothing called a brain, you can’t feel it, just a space filled but empty, figuratively and literally. Other times I can become consumed by joy, excitement, energy, fury, anger, concentration, focus, productive fervor and unproductive fervor, determination, celebration, what happens before you laugh, and what keeps you laughing. Other times I can delve into a neutral state, not to say its a compromise between negative or positive, categorizing into positive or negative, into two sides is pointless anyway, regardless, its the state after you laugh, when you feel content to fall asleep, the moment you finished all your work, when you come back after a long day at work, and other feelings, emotions, and experiences. 

Who am I, me, who is this person? Well, in a way the only real person who exists, the only one who exists for me, although ask anyone and they will say that is them, so I suppose that that isn’t me, because everyone is me. Then, perhaps I am what I’ve experienced, not the experiencer, however that explains nothing, not my state or emotions, just a data set if you will, a large and vast amount of information that can’t tell you anything in itself, but must be used to make a conclusion, and what I want is a conclusion not the means to one. Then perhaps there is some deep non-physical incarnation of self that resides in my body, that can neither be proven as true or untrue, which in the perspective of the scientific might as well mean it doesn’t exist, however, despite as an advocate of science I am, I cannot agree with that, I feel it, like the first, second, this third idea resonates. 

My identity exists, I am a person, I am a unique and individual person, however much I’ve known since the beginning. Knowing that doesn’t help me interpret who I am in relation to an object. What even is the meaning of relating myself to an object? Comparison makes sense, in identifying aspects of who you are vs who you aren’t in that object you come to a greater understanding of both the object, yourself, and others, object or not. However, when it comes to the literary analysis of a metaphorical image that must be described as yourself and your identity, that greater understanding is lost. Then why? Metaphors as a concept have permeated literature, mostly to emphasize or reinterpret the meaning of a simple word into what that word or phrase could not have done on its own. However in the context of reinterpreting yourself as a metaphor, you are not recontextualizing or reinterpreting on a simpler yet deeper level, instead you are simplifying in a summarizing fashion, turning a complex notion and perhaps the most complex notion and turning it into a 200 word piece, not that the idea in itself is ridiculous, for others it's simply a fun exercise, an activity they use for twenty minutes to provide a thought experiment for their brain, they don’t feel the need to over complicate the thought process, what works works and that process is enviable on a certain level. However that notion is one I disagree with, what I am, what I think, can’t be recontextualized on a simpler level, or summarized, compared perhaps. My brain is one that has too perfect a thought process, finding the ultimate conclusion and ultimate statement, as such to recontextualize a complex and deep concept into one of a fun and ultimately pointless venture is an activity I find holds no meaning. 

Take a puddle of water, that lives in a society of water, goes to school with water, goes to work with water, suddenly having to write an interpretive piece on itself and a bipedal species having originated from africa. This puddle is surrounded by water it generally regards as hot or cold, wet or solid or gaseous, angry or sad, energized or lazy, clean or dirty. Having compared itself with the water around itself it wonders who it is, that is, where it lies between all of its peers in terms of its identity, and perhaps it panics because this is only the first step, and everyone around it has practically started writing, finished writing. Then it remembers it has to compare whatever conclusion of who it determined was its identity, with an unrelated bipedal organism. However long would this task take? How many aspects of philosophy would this puddle have to touch on? And how many papers, people, experts, and internal thoughts would it have to draft through? It’s quite impossible, not impossible, it's doable, but in the context of its surrounding daily activities of which most have also been over complicated, what would be the best way of approaching the assignment?

Identity can often be traced back to career, passions, hobbies, likes, dislikes. Famous authors, influencers, intellectuals, experts, leaders, adults, workers, anybody can surround their personality around these things, especially later in life. I hold no such thing, on the contrary I ask why, why would you commit your life and experience to a singular task, one that ultimately holds no meaning, not to say it shouldn’t be done, but it shouldn’t be done without self contextualization and reflection. Think later, once you’ve chosen that path, be it a job, field of study, or just time devoted to something, anything. Would you regret it? Choices like these aren’t given as much importance and weight as they should, yet at the same time giving too much thought and anxiety into these decisions might lead you to the wrong one,  or make you lose the time you could have devoted to one. If you started studying at 35, why now, why not at 25, if you started at 25 why, how could you, should have started at 15, at 10, at 5, should have been given pre-birth training, yes that exists. 

In fact, what is the meaning of anything? In life, in living, in being given life. The only answer lies in religion, that is not to say that answer is right, or that these questions are questions that should be answered. When humans try to find meaning, they often find no answers, and so when society gives them an explanation they take it, because if there is no higher power, no history beyond history, no life beyond life, no goal beyond your own, then what is the point? Even if there was such greater meaning, that meaning in itself doesn’t have to be followed, sure you probably should act with your morals, or society, or god, but you don’t have to, if you can do anything, you can often come up with any justification, philosophy needs no evidence, and thus any conclusion on it can be reached, which ultimately leaves the meaning of everything, of life, of living, of the universe, of being, of matter, it's all unanswered, unanswered. Philosophy provides every explanation, but none are right, believe it or not this belief that all philosophy is meaningless has a name, nihilism.

Nihilism is not the belief in nothing, but the belief that everything is nothing, that nothing is correct, which means that anything can be correct. This is in a sense the only philosophy that is correct, because it marks every philosophy as a correct interpretation of the universe, religion, science, all of it is correct because it’s created by us. None of it has any true truth, it's all just a figment of our imagination, but imagination isn’t insignificant. It’s like language, words, none of it is real, it's made up, but because we made it, and need to use it, and it represents things that exist despite a lack of concrete defined existence. God isn’t real, science is fake, Trump is an idiot, and a genius. Progress is backwards, but it's the lifeblood of our species. We are parasytes destroying the environment, the environment isn’t real, life is pointless, life is real, everything and all is nothing. Is. Just is.