溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Where Exactly Is This "I"?
If it is neither body nor character, where is the "I" that is loved when I am loved?
Where, then, is this "I," if it is neither in the body nor in the soul?
Pascal throws a mischievous experiment. If someone loves my beauty, they love not me but a face that will soon vanish. The same holds if they love my judgment — lose the faculty, and the love goes too. Then where is the "I itself," neither a quality of the body nor a power of the mind? He needles us: we live loving something without substance. The question branched. Hume said there is no such "I" at all; Kant posited a "transcendental self" that gives unity behind experience; and the Upanishads pointed to a true Self that is neither body nor mind — "not this, not that" (neti neti). The identity of the "I" that is loved is still not caught.
In an age that prices one another by image and specs, the question of the "I itself" beneath them all lands cooler still.
This question is sly and yet aches.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
This question is sly and yet aches. When someone says they love me, do they love "me," or my face, my ability, my usefulness? And when all those fade, what "I" remains? Pascal gives no answer and sets me at the cliff's edge. Yet strangely, the mystery of that uncatchable "I" also guards me from being carelessly defined. Not fully knowing what I am, I nonetheless live loving and being loved. Before that mystery, I too am standing.
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