I
______ therefore I am. Fill in the blank. I can't. The
blank is far too small. Even 50 spaces on the line would not be sufficient.
I could take the easy way out and say, like Descartes, that I think, therefore
I am. My mind functions and because of that I can know that I exist.
But, I do more than just exist.
I
participate therefore I am. My days are filled with activities which
identify me as part of a social group. I contribute to their wholeness
as they do to mine. We communicate. We feel that together we
have a mission and a goal. We are friends and colleagues who have
known each other through good times and bad. We rely on each other
and stimulate each other to be the best we can be.
I
feel emotions therefore I am. I love and I am loved. I feel
emotions so strong that I am left speechless at times. The day of
the collapse of the World Trade Towers the depth of pain I felt was beyond
words. When my son, who had been plagued by mishaps in his adolescence,
graduated from college and went on to graduate school my pride and jubilation
made me feel alive.
In my quest to become a scholar, I think and therefore I am.
I think and make connections with what I learn to build a knowledge base.
I strive to comprehend ideas which I know will cost me hours of pondering.
In the end, as I experience a mental ‘ah ha’, my mind will grow,
embrace the new concepts, and prepare to grapple and grasp again.
I procreated and therefore watch my life pass on through my children and
know that I will exist through them. My daughter the debater, the
singer, the save the world advocate, and my son the athlete
and the professor are part of me and my legacy to the world.
I am and will be.
I
pray and therefore feel a oneness with a world that is so much more than
I am. I share in an experience which goes beyond words as I
meditate and feel a sense of peace and relaxation. I am included
in a sense of oneness with nature and all that is good.
I
perform physically and therefore I am. My body goes through workouts
designed to make the muscles stretch and grow to keep strong and
flexible. As they recuperate after a run or a weightlifting routine
their gentle soreness and tingle reminds me that I am. I feel empowered
to live a physical life and to challenge myself even though my body
is aging.
When any
of these integral aspects of my life disappear I will continue to exist
but not as a complete being. My mental, physical, emotional, spiritual,
familial, intellectual lives create a unique being.
All those aspects blend into one to make me who I am .
I ______therefore I am? Could you make the blank longer next time?
NO!
Because it's probably not a quest to commit one's life's work too!
It's an intellectual exercise--if taken from Descartes' perspective, it's
really just a challenge to find a starting point to build an argument.
I like
your approach; it avoids what I call just-a-phrenia-- the search to be
one thing instead of many things. |