There are those times when I like to find obscure things to read, black and white videos to watch of thinkers that are long gone but left without a doubt some deep footprints in the mud. It's been a few years now since the first time I ran across one of Jiddu's videos on youtube after a good friend mentioned his name in casual conversation.

I don't claim to know much about philosophy and I would even go as far to say that the more I learn about it, the more I listen to people who are submerged in the field, the more I realize how little I know about these concepts and more importantly how much I still don't know about myself.

Mental Seeds ready to sprout. Just add water?

Plenty of times in my life someone has shared a nugget of wisdom with me, someone has taken the time to explain something and yet the idea had never truly rooted in my mind. I can't help to wonder if there is some sort of alignment necessary that can be explained by science or some sort of mental shift that we can only speculate about as to make way for what I could only describe fertile ground.

What am I talking about? - Some of these mental seeds as I like to call them evoke deep thought, but do not by themselves offer any significant answers, at least not to me. The idea of all of us wanting to be famous is somewhat a established truth of modern society, yet the second part of this short thought seems to fall short of delivering a punch line of enlightened truth, unless of course you read it with intense intent and more than once.

Other questions reveal themselves

As if they had been hiding behind bushes waiting for the opportune moment to attack. A cynic would prop up his stance and in futile resistance offer the mental emergency brakes to avoid confusing the logical compass. "Define Freedom!!!" his ego would probably retort as if there is someone who will listen to the internal rebuttal.

In the attempt to define a definition we might find ourselves lost in layers of interacting correlated ideas that are not mutually exclusive of course, but are distinctly shaded with similar logical strokes. So here we are yet again back to the same quote, back to reading it once more as if we are just making sure a punctuation was not missed.

The self exploration can be painful

At least to those of us who are not used to abandoning the ego, or making it small enough as to not obfuscate self criticism. After all, how much time have we spent protecting our pride? - We have been told maybe through cultural mediums of certain rules that need to be followed as to become a proper human being, but the definition of self has never been truly explored, it's simply been dramatized in films, idolized in novels but hidden from real life.

A lot of elements of the self are to be hidden of course, it's just proper to sweep weakness under the rug. Who respects a man who cries, a man who fears? - In this somewhat futile quest to wear an emotional iron mask we find ourselves losing the self and falling back into labels, as if they will provide enough individualism to secure our self worth.

Labels and Individualism?

It sounds like a contradiction because it just is, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with neither of them. Labels are useful for tribal identities, for cooperative efforts and community efficiency and Individualistic traits are necessary to not only explore the self, the true self, but more importantly strip ourselves from zombie like obedience when it's needed.

The virtual experiment

Offers a unique landscape, at least in the sense that names are not as important as they are in common social structures. The worth of my words may have absolutely nothing to do with my given name or cultural background and hopefully they can stand on their own merit.

The handle, or nickname and avatar I've chosen to use can represent me in more ways than my name ever could just because it was chosen and created with intent and not given to me without consent, I was a infant after all.

All this typing, all this thinking makes me remember the title of this entry and resets my thoughts, yet again....

Who are you? Who am I?