In the Beginning

Philosophy begins with a mysterious awe for existence - a moment of realization like fireworks going off in the distance. We begin to wonder in total amazement for what all of reality is. Questions so simple in origin brings the awe-filled contemplative mind to perplexity - allowing the soul transcendent joy when "truth" is grasped.


Reality and the experience of truth goes beyond what the pen can write. It even goes beyond recalling the moments of seeing the world from such a subtle and lucid viewpoint. "Truth" is an ever reoccurring phenomenon that the mind finds itself to be in, consumed in the wonderment of existing. Existence brings the Self to contemplate the meaning and purpose of lived-life both in its joyful moments of enlightenment and the dark moments of isolation.


When contemplating the truth, philosophical thoughts emerges from the mystery of consciousness. Questions that traverse the boundaries of the given, brings to light the wonder of what it means to be alive, and to have the ability to "see" and experience the world in all its beauty and awkwardness. It is "here" that the mind is able to differentiate the radical separation of the world that exists in its own mind and that exists beyond the mind.


The question: Which came first, consciousness or the world that our conscious self perceives? From a simplistic viewpoint the world that the mind is able to perceive exists as a separate domain, a realm that interconnects all conscious and sentient beings. It is here that our existence plays a role like actors on the stage of life. However, without the minds inner world, isolated in its own realm of exclusiveness, the outer world would be non-existent to the perceiving mind.


It is this separation of the world of the mind (what I will call the formal world) and the outer world (what I will call the Matterial-Phenomenal world) that is the key to creating a philosophical identity that allows for a creative transcendence beyond the simplicity of the given. By differentiating the two domains, the mind is able to have clarity over its own conscious self and what exists in the matterial phenomenal realm.


Yet, even with this separation the experience of living and of having consciousness remains to be a wonder. "What is 'this world' that surrounds the Self? and "What does it mean to be thinking and pondering the meaning of existence? It is with these questions that consciousness is able to begin to understand the perplexity that underlies the experience of philosophy.


We begin to think logically about philosophy by constructing a system dependent on certain experiences and linguistic phrases. Thus the genesis of the process begins by realizing the "nay" of life in the void of mindless existence for a "Yea" of something more. This process of negating existence in the matterial-phenomenal realm towards a transcendent self-consciousness in the formal world is the beginning to the affirmation of the "yea-of philosophy".


When we affirm the philosophical life of contemplation, we begin to distance ourselves from the mundane world of our senses. Stillness and the clarity of the thoughts and questions that arise in the mind take-on a life of its own. "Here" no longer is a spacial location, but signifies the place where thoughts arise. From consciousness emerges all of what the Self experiences both internally and externally.


The discovery of "Truth" therefore begins from an internal motion to understand the world in a logical way. From its own identity in the Formal world, consciousness perceives the matterial world like a tourist in a foreign land. Existence becomes isolated as it retracts into its own subjectivity. A new process and purpose emerges as the Mind looks to philosophy as a tool to bring the Self closer to the "unknown."

continuity

Human nature, or "Self nature" is constantly in a process of change as it adapts to the circumstance of the time. What used to be no longer remains, while new modes of being emerge. The Self clings to those influential moments in history, to find continuity in its own identity. But specific moments of shattering change from past to present makes "continuity of identity" to be nothing more than mere words and phrases. Yet, there remains in the conscious mind, the essence of the Self that persists through all the changes. We remain the same Self, the same Self that declares "I" that transcends time.

Past and Future - a contemporary perspective

The Self is conflicted between diverging identities of the past and present. In some sense  identities are always changing - a process of growth and decay, and growth again. However, specific moments of divergence creates a dynamic change in one's own psyche, where continuity of past and present no longer is an easy narrative to identify with. How can the Self identify with its own conscious thought, without the ability to see beyond the change of moments past?


This is important because as beings in a process of psychological and philosophical change, we are always individuating the Self from the moments past. After catastrophic, Self shattering change of the past, the Self reemerges by aimlessly roaming the question of identity, while striving to reconstruct a viable narrative. The influence of previous moments in the Self's collective history becomes important in the process of spiritual and intellectual survival. But time and space are in motion. What used to be near is so distant in the present. Without the influence and existence of those influential parts of history the Self may remain aimless in its own existence.


The Self must therefore take it upon itself to Will a world that is acceptable. In this process of growth, the environment and the variables become an influential component of how it reconstructs itself. The devastation that it finds itself to be in, is limiting the potentialities of future success in re-identifying the Self to a narrative - a freedom beyond the confines of Self isolation.

perception - is it reality

Consciousness and our perception of the world around us is nothing more than a construction of the mind. The mystery of what it means to exist ought to be a profound mystery to the Self that contemplates the truth. How is our experience of all that exists, true only to the Self that perceives its own reality?


The existence of a world, and lived-life in the world goes unquestioned to the minds of most who aimlessly live. Yet, to those who contemplate questions of significance in regards to being/existence, there emerges a profound fascination towards the world and the Self. Modern Philosophy begins with Decartes' "I think therefore I am" - a process of deconstructing all of existence to one's own conscious existence as a experiencing subject. The "I" emerges to be the foundation to all of what we experience, leaving the rest of the world to be less definite. The Self takes a leap of faith to state that the world around us definitely "exists" without doubt. But it is nothing more than a "leap" to claim that the Self "is" apart of a larger world. Without its own ability to "perceive" the world, there exists no world!