Personal Narrative- Defining Self Essay

-          I can imagine myself as a thinking thing existing apart from the body (as shown by the different essences in the argument from essence.).

A body is just a body without a brain to command it and a brain can only do so much without a body to yield. It’s undeniable that the mind and body are completely dependent on the other to function, but where do they join together to form a unique individual. To what extent do the mind and body bridge together to form a unique individual? Is there even a bridge that connects them or are the mind and body separate entities who solely rely on each other to function, but that’s where all the shared boundaries that create a person end.

I was ten, the most terrifying event I had been through was riding the little dragon roller coaster at the fair, but that night changed it all. The fear that started in my head spread like wildfire to the rest of my body from the tips of my fingers to the bottoms of my toes. My heart was racing so fast that it could have beat Usain Bolt in a 100m dash. Stop, drop and roll, three steps that should have come naturally, but instead I froze, looked down at my yellow and black checkered flannel in complete terror, fearing for my life.

I had always assumed that my legs were strong and that I had decent muscle control, however, this thought was proven wrong at the beginning of my junior year in high school due to a detrimental injury. It was the first game of fall league for basketball, and within the first five minutes I had succumbed to an injury. Tearing my ACL and Meniscus has taught me to continue improving on my strength, not let this one injury keep me down, and to keep a positive mindset.

Soul theory argues that what makes a person who they are is not their physical presence, however, it is a person’s soul that differentiates them from an other living being (Perry, pp 3). The soul is one’s consciousness, their mind, allowing them to be present, experience and make decisions (Weisberg, January 2016). One’s personal identity is directly linked to one’s soul, if one has the same soul they are the same person (Perry, pp 4).

mostly of Caucasian. Although I am a quick learner, it was especially hard for me

Whether physically or mentally, a single element of a human being cannot stand on its own. When interviewed on the topic, Mitchiko Ishigami-Iagolnitzer states that the Buddhist analysis of the self “…consists in dissecting a thing into its components, then in showing its lack of identity with each component and in concluding its nominal and unreal existence" (3). What the text, as well as Ishigami-Iagolnitzer, are attempting to explain is that the “self” as we know it is simply an idea used to label a temporary collection of parts that work as one entity.

I am a body that has strengths and weaknesses; But I am not only a body, because when it comes to a part, I am still myself.

I never would think about showing an animal. I decided to go wild and show a steer my junior year, I did not think about showing an animal so big before but it was worth the wild. I knew it would be hard work, dedication and responsibility. I worked so hard to get where I wanted that steer and it sure did pay off. Being successful is something that someone feels when they work for something that they tried so hard on and then succeeded in it. Success is the way I felt when I was getting ready for the show while I was standing to be called in my class and how I felt when I got out of the show ring.

“Hey boys! Let’s go pick up trash around the park!” During dog walks around our local park, my family and I had noticed an accumulating amount of trash scattered around the park, making it look like “No Man’s Land”. Cigarette butts littered the ground like bullet cartridges and broken bottles were strategically arranged like barbed wire. My dad thought we had a responsibility to help our neighborhood, so he drafted my brother and me to pick up trash, yet the responses he heard were not from patriotic soldiers but from ungrateful eighth graders:

I believe there are both an immaterial part to you and a physical part. The physical part of you cannot survive without the immaterial. The immaterial part of a person is the soul, which I also believe, is the mind. However, your soul can live on without the physical sense of you. I believe that the physical part of you, your body, is acting like a cage to your soul. The body is kind of like a suit that your soul wears while it is on Earth. There is only one part of you that controls your actions and thoughts, which is your mind. Also, I believe that your body without a soul is just dead. If your soul and body are no longer at one then I believe you soul moves on to another world where your body is just dead. Once the soul and body are no longer connected the body has no purpose and has no actions. Since without the soul the body is nothing but matter then the soul is that part that is making all decisions, which is why I believe it is also the mind. It is the part of a person that make up a personality or gives a person reason. I believe the mind is the only part of a person that makes decisions and puts your physical body in action. With believing that the soul is in a body but the soul does not need the body, I

Some would choose to declare that every human being is both a body and a mind. Both being gelled together until death, than having the mind go on to exist and the body being lifeless. A person lives throughout two collateral histories, one having to do with what happens to the body and in it, and the other being what happens in and to the mind. What happens to the body is public and what happens to the mind is private. The events which reply to the body consist of the physical world, and the events of the mind consist of the mental world.

The mind (soul) and the body can be apart somehow. You trust something in your soul even the things you trust does not exist, and you trust how thing is when you see it by how it is. Now I am giving example of three philosophers to show how they debate about mind and soul.

The Self Every situation that an individual is exposed to throughout life, helps mold our “self.” As humans we have the ability to see ourselves from the outside, and all through life we try to see what others see and our “self” revolves around the generalized other. We observe how others perceive us and we make conclusions depending on our observations. How we act around others depends on the image we feel they have towards us.

The modern view of self is articulated in the works of 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes. He pioneered the dualistic understanding of the human being, which is made up of the "mental substance (mind) and the physical substance (body)" (Warburton, N., 1992). Here, the body has physical properties like having weight and using space, whereas the mind is a non-material substance, responsible for thought and experience and hence is the abode of consciousness. In his view, the self is a spiritual "subject of experience" which is fundamentally different from the body and nature, where the body inessential and the mind can exist independently. His radical scepticism led to the formation of the "Illusion argument", where the bodily senses are deemed unreliable and thus the existence of the external world and body is uncertain. The only thing one can be