It is best to focus on the more important things.
Sometimes we become conflicted when we come to sense or realize that certain things which we will or desire are not in harmony or compatible with other things.
It’s the nature of mankind.
Memory. Early on I made mention of memories being erased before the soul enters a body (I have no idea why, but Ecmandu says we sign up to live through contracts throughout eternity- often Truth is stranger than fiction, assuming a newborn’s body), however I may remember a bit more than most and lack complete understanding of that too.
Perhaps the blood of your ancestors which flows through you, along with your individual life experiences which may have even began some moments after conception and how each of you tend to view the world.
Brain chemistry and how our very own individual peculiar minds relate to Everything might have something to do with it too.
A tabula rasa we are not.
It’s a very interesting question to ponder.
Let’s not forget that our origins are from among the stars.
Is one’s personality really one’s essence?
I would think that one’s essence or, at least to me, what makes someone who they truly are, where they “live within their selves” resides in a deeper place than personality.
Many actually do have the same kind of personality I think but not necessarily the same essence.
I think that essence is more “soul-like” but not the soul.
My essence compels me to look up at the stars. Another’s might compel him or her to look at the next lamborghini or another’s might be to solve the world’s greatest newest mathematical equation.
Personalities and behaviors can grow and evolve, but not the essence of your soul. What you choose to do with what you have available is the change you are referring to but it doesn’t transcend lifetimes as a new you, the essence of the original you remains a fixture that can’t be denied.
I wonder about this Wendy. If we are capable of change in the above regard, how could that NOT change our essence?
As we grow, wouldn’t we also be capable of taking on a new “essence” or a more transformed one?
As something is affected, something else is also affected.
The essence of our origin which came out of that primordial soup is far different today than it was at that time.
Would I be wrong here, as per your above statement, in thinking that essence to you is really the *soul"?
It’s like being born white, while you may tan and act black (like that white chick who ran a chapter of the NAACP posing as an African American because she felt black), your reality is that you are white.
Are you saying that the essence you originally have can never be changed even if you want it to
And if you are what then is the change that inevitably happens to every one over their life time
Most people are only learning about who they are during their lifetime and who they are does not change from birth to death whatsoever…only their perceptions and behaviors change, not their core self.
There are aspects of who we are which are, as they say, hardwired. These tend to be persistent through our lives. But nothing is permanent. Change is a fundamental law of existence.
Sometimes it’s a matter how fast things change. Other times it’s a matter of how frequently things reacquire their prior states.
Not everything changes all the time. In my mind’s eye you are giborgia and as I finish this sentence you are still giborgia in my mind’s eye. Yep, still giborgia. Even as time passed and you and I both aged, you remain giborgia.
Your essence is already formed before birth. It transcends time and it never, ever, ever changes. True, your perceptions and behaviors change within the scope of your design as you discover or rediscover who you are, but you don’t. You cannot run from yourself. You cannot be another self. There is no changing who you are, just what you choose to do with who you are.
What you’re talking about is recurrence of identity. In your mind’s eye, the same identity is attributed to me every time you think of me–but then your mind wonders off and thinks of something else. The identity in your mind simply comes back. As for the real me, I am always changing. My body sheds cells and regenerates others. My mind is never still for an instant. But like you, I will always identify myself as ‘gib’. But this is a recurrence, not a constant.
I don’t believe essences are things we carry around with us, I believe they are things we project onto stuff. Since I was a child, I’ve grown physically and mentally. I’m not the same person I used to be. I still recognize a continuum between the child I once was and the adult I am now, and that’s what keeps bringing up the same self-identity in my mind (which I project as my essence), but like I said, that’s a recurrence, not a constant.
Essences are us. Each soul is individualized with essences. Some silly examples that you may be able to relate to since you cannot get beyond your physicality…kindness=green eyes, compassion=large feet, generosity=pointed ears, easily amused=webbed toes, optimistic=brown hair, etc.
You are the same being you have always been, that is how you identify you and operate in this conscious continuum. Your soul, your essence, is unchanged.
The meatbag you fill in a world of meatbags changes, but your filling is a constant that is how you remember yourself, recognize yourself, identify yourself. All this change you speak of is apart from your core self, its superfluous life, the passing of time so you can discover how to be the best you, you can be throughout eternity. Why can’t you differentiate the external you from the internal you?