Header photo by Alvin Cabaltera on Unsplash. All rights reserved.

Symon Dela Cruz

      Imagine this. You just graduated from university and have landed a job interview. Wardrobe in check, best smiles, and invoking all the good luck as humanly possible. You walk in, sit down, and exchange pleasantries. The interviewer speaks. ‘So, tell me about yourself. And boom you’re stumped. The past four years have consumed you enough that you have come to realize: you have lost your **sense of self**. Job interviews are only one of the multitude of scenarios where context compels us to evaluate our conception of ourselves. The first day in school, romantic dates, and meeting new people only to name a few. We often encounter the question: *who am I?* in arguably superficial contexts that we rarely devote precious time and brain power in actually answering it. 

      Coming up with an answer to such a simple yet profound inquiry can be challenging. Does one highlight the qualities of their physicality or the memories they have made? What about one’s merits and capabilities? Or their roles in matters much greater than themselves? Here we see the vastness of what can qualify as one’s **self-identity**. Answering the question *who am I* then becomes a matter of choosing. Acknowledging or, otherwise, rejecting parts of ourselves. Only then are we able to define one’s essential self. 

     The **essential self** is the set of characteristics that defines a particular person. In contrast, self-identity is the *how* of characterizing the essential self, either through general or particular characterizations. Every human must indeed have, to some degree, an idea of themself (because otherwise is madness). However, we must first ask *is it justified that, in creating one’s essential self, only parts of ourselves qualify*?

      It is undeniable that as humans what appeals to our senses takes privilege. In other words, we know somebody is someone because of their physicality, which includes their looks, stature, and voice. The **Body Theory** tells us that our physical condition is what constitutes the essential self. My essential self would then be my 5’6” height, oily facial skin, moles on my face, and other observable facts of my physicality. But is this not a fragile conception of the essential self? Science tells us that the human person is “completely new” every 7 years. Even beyond the cellular level, people transform their physicality several times throughout the course of one’s life, both voluntarily and involuntarily. Puberty, hair cuts, body modifications like piercings and tattoos just to name a few. Yet sometimes some people refuse their physicality, as in the majority of transgender people before transition. Their conception of themselves do not correspond to the facticity of their bodies; thus, they amend this mismatch through several means. 

      This, hence, leads to a possibility of the essential self being the consciousness within us–the non-physical thought-producing mind. Besides, notions of gender identity, gender expression, **memory** and other notions relating to the self are stored in the mind. The mind is through which we are able to discern that we indeed are. In so applying this line of thinking, I can be myself in other physical mediums so long as I retain the ability to think the way as I do now. *The self is the thinking self,* or in the words of René Descartes: “I think therefore I am.” But then again, people incapacitated of thinking exist. Is it the case that when we age and eventually lose the capability to think, or when we forget our memories that we are no longer ourselves any more? The concept of the **Thinking Self** falls short to account for people with cognitive disabilities. Not to mention, if the human self is the mind–a non-physical substance, the workings of its interaction with our physical substance is a mystery, in other words, the **Mind-Body Problem**. 

      Up to this point, what seems like the most basic to human experience is not what construes the essential self. That is because to understand the self and construct the essential self, we must look at the whole person. An approach known as **holism** that functions by pushing back against the entirety of the Mind-Body Problem. It asserts that the human self is an **embodied consciousness** operating in a wider context. Holism looks at the whole person–taking into account both the body and mind, together with the roles that the self takes in society. And unlike the Body Theory nor the Thinking Self it does not fall short of acknowledging the self as inherently intricate. However, in the holistic understanding of the self, *what exactly makes up the* *whole person?*

      Concisely, the holistic embodied consciousness is the amalgam of its mind and body, its relation to other embodied consciousness, its agency, and its history. From the beginning of one’s life, it has inevitably gained relations with its blood family, and throughout the course of its life will continue to form more. In doing so, it endlessly decides whether it is in ascription or in opposition to these relations. It also, all the while, selects which version of itself shall it ascribe or oppose, and in the rare occasion create one. It is in this that we can see the embodied consciousness’ capability of making its own choices. Jean-Paul Sartre takes this further and tells us that the human person has its **transcendence** enabling it to go beyond its **facticity**, and not doing otherwise is to be in **bad faith**; that is, we are responsible for making ourselves amidst our material conditions.

In sum, the essential self and its self-identity is continuously and endlessly made–its authenticity, and it’s self realization only met at the end of its time after fully living to one own’s standard. It is more than just solely the mind, body, or both. Forming the essential self is not to choose a set of characteristics at the present moment, but to honor its history and to strive for tomorrow–it is to live.

<aside> 🧘🏽 The human self is the persistence of an embodied consciousness and its social relations throughout time and the physical world, as well as, the context of the society it belongs. To say otherwise is to deny the self of its humanity–devoid of all depth and meaning.

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