Which I think it does. I think a thing has to be presented to us first before we can project an essence onto it. We first get to know a person–get a taste for their attitude–and that for us defines who they are. This can be applied to one’s self as well–we watch ourselves as we express or practice a certain attitude and this gets incorporated into our self-image.
Essence is not surface personality traits, its your will exemplified through time, through eternity.
I’ll have to give that some thought, brown eyes. I’m not so sure that they do though but I may be wrong.
Our attitudes do define our perceptions and beliefs.
But I think that essence goes deeper. It’s who we are at our spiritual (not religious) core.
Will, for me, has to do with ego traits.
I’m not sure that our essence wills anything - it just IS in a sense.
Arc wrote
Your “will” or essence can have many characteristics, sides to it. It is the combination of those in effort that solidify in stone or you were made to be that way by your big sky daddy. Either way, in stone.
What is the constant here that we’re calling “essence”? Will? But the will changes over time–it becomes stronger/weaker, it wills different things. If it’s the everlasting presence of a will, then there is nothing in one will to distinguish it from another.
I’m more partial to the “bundle” theory of the self–the theory that says we are, at any given moment, just the hodgepodge of mental content and persuasions and dispositions that make up our minds. There is no constant that underlies the flux.
There are things that repeat, however, things like tastes, preferences, memories, beliefs, values, hearing our name, seeing the same person every time we look in the mirror, and these in the abstract might be considered together to be our “essence”.
You will different things or your will is distracted by different things?
…Not even physics?
Whatever essence you possess only exists while you are alive like consciousness
Your memory may survive in others but your essence cannot so is gone for ever
Even physics is fundamentally change… and it would be hard to pin down your unique “essence” by looking at the physics of your body.
Interestingly though, the physical body is in large part where we get the idea that we have an essence. “Essences” are really just identities. We project them onto objects. This has the essence of a rock whereas that has the essence of a tree, and that over there has the essence of my tree, the one I used to climb as a child. Identities. We do the same with people–that is John, that is Sarah, that is Steve–we identify the bodies, and like with all other objects, we think of them as “constants”. This is no less true for our own bodies when we look at ourselves in the mirror. Our essences acquire the uniqueness of our character by associations with all the peripheral aspects of ourselves–Steve works at a power plant, he’s a rather rude person, he dresses well, etc. ← All this goes towards who Steve is and colors his essence in a unique hue.
Gibbuns
Your will is an energy flow. It goes where your mind tells it. Your mind either gets distracted or stays on course.
Hows about your mind goes where your will tells it to but those blasted minds do get distracted while your will remains the same constant.
Ok, but then how can your will be unique? What makes my essence quintessentially “gib” and your essence quitessentially “Mongoose”?
No two have exactly the same personality so that is your essence
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.
Aside from that ~~ 
Happy New Year, Gib. 
Ancient, generous, and simple.
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.