I was reading Philosophy for Dummies recently, which may tell you something about the level of philosopher you’re dealing with here.

Descartes showed up with his famous:

“I think, therefore I am.”

I had heard that line countless times. I suspect most of us have.

But this time I actually stopped long enough to understand the question he was wrestling with.

How do I know I exist?

Descartes wasn’t saying, “I think I’m successful, therefore I am successful,” or “I think I’m miserable, therefore I am a miserable person.”

He was trying to find something he could know with certainty.

He could doubt almost everything. His senses could deceive him. His understanding of the world could be wrong. His beliefs could be mistaken.

But he couldn’t doubt that the doubting was happening.

If a thought was occurring, something had to be there to experience it.

I went, YES!

Not because I had suddenly become a 17th-century French philosopher before breakfast, but because it connected with something I have been exploring for years.

I Am, Therefore I Think?

I’ve heard people in the Three Principles world turn Descartes around:

“I am, therefore I think.”

I like that too.

Descartes seems to be pointing from thought toward existence:

Thinking is happening, therefore I know I exist.

“I am, therefore I think” seems to point in the opposite direction:

Existence comes first. Thought appears within it.

Both can sound true depending on what we’re pointing toward.

But then I started muddling around with this a little more.

And that’s usually where the trouble starts.

What Does Experience Actually Tell Me?

Suppose I’m afraid.

What does that fear tell me about who I am?

At first the answer seems obvious.

I’m afraid, therefore I’m fearful.

But is that actually true?

Ten minutes later I might be laughing.

Am I now a happy person?

Tomorrow I might be irritated with someone.

Apparently I’ve become an angry person.

Then I’m sitting quietly drinking coffee and thinking about absolutely nothing of consequence.

Who am I now?

Rick, temporarily between identities?

It starts getting a little silly.

Yet we do this all the time.

We take something we’re experiencing and turn it into something we are.

I’m anxious.

I’m insecure.

I’m depressed.

I’m confident.

I’m successful.

I’m a failure.

I’m happy.

I’m broken.

Notice the tiny but enormous jump.

An experience occurred.

Then thought created an identity from it.

What if the experience never said any of that?

What if sadness simply means sadness is being experienced?

Fear means fear is being experienced.

Confidence means confidence is being experienced.

Perhaps:

Experience doesn’t tell us who we are.
It tells us what we’re experiencing.

That’s quite different.

But Wait a Minute…

Here’s where I want to challenge my own lovely insight before I turn it into another refrigerator magnet.

Does experience really tell us nothing about ourselves?

I’m not sure.

Our experiences can certainly reveal patterns. I may notice that I become defensive around certain subjects. I may discover things I enjoy, things I avoid, people I love, behaviours I regret and values that seem important to me.

That’s useful information.

If I repeatedly behave badly when I’m angry, saying “That’s just an experience and it isn’t who I am” could become a wonderfully philosophical way of avoiding responsibility.

Nice try, Rick.

Experience may teach me plenty about how I currently behave, what I believe, what I tend to think and how I move through the world.

But does any of that tell me what I fundamentally am?

That’s where I’m less convinced.

A pattern isn’t necessarily an identity.

A behaviour isn’t necessarily an identity.

A feeling isn’t necessarily an identity.

Even the story I’ve accumulated about myself over nearly seven decades is still, at least partly, a story.

So Who Are We?

And now comes the question human beings have apparently been unable to leave alone:

Who am I?

We have produced some magnificent answers.

Soul.

Consciousness.

Awareness.

Energy.

A biological organism.

A child of God.

The universe experiencing itself.

A spiritual being having a human experience.

I particularly like that last one.

But liking an idea doesn’t make it true.

It remains an idea.

Maybe an extraordinarily beautiful idea. Maybe even a true one.

I don’t know.

And I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with those three words.

Because there’s something funny about using thought to determine what exists before, beneath or beyond thought.

It’s a little like asking the character in the novel to explain the author.

Maybe it can.

Maybe it can’t.

Then There Is Sleep

Sleep makes this even more interesting.

There are periods of sleep when I have no recollection of anything.

The same thing happens under anesthesia.

One moment I’m there.

Then…

I’m there again.

Apparently several hours passed.

My body continued doing whatever bodies do. People moved around me. The world didn’t disappear.

But as far as my remembered experience is concerned, there’s a hole in the movie.

Was consciousness gone?

Was awareness still present but leaving no memory?

Was something else happening?

Again:

I don’t know.

I rather like not knowing.

It saves an enormous amount of paperwork.

Perhaps Descartes Gave Us Enough

Maybe we don’t have to turn “I think, therefore I am” into something it was never intended to mean.

Thought doesn’t necessarily tell me what I am.

It doesn’t necessarily tell me who I am.

And it certainly doesn’t mean I become whatever happens to wander through my head.

Perhaps experience offers something much simpler.

Experience can tell us that we are.
It cannot tell us what we are.

Even that statement deserves a question mark rather than a stone tablet.

Because how would I know?

Maybe the invitation isn’t to finally answer the question Who am I?

Maybe it’s to notice how quickly we answer it.

“I am anxious.”

“I am damaged.”

“I am not good enough.”

“I am successful.”

“I am enlightened.”

“I am a spiritual being.”

Perhaps they’re all worth holding a little more lightly.

Especially the last couple. The ego does look rather fetching in spiritual clothing.

There is experience happening right now.

Thought.

Feeling.

Colour.

Sound.

Memory.

Sensation.

Life.

That’s difficult to argue with.

What does all of it ultimately mean about what you are?

I haven’t got a clue.

And perhaps, for today, we don’t need one.

We can leave the great mystery unsolved, finish our coffee, and get on with being whatever the hell we are.