When you speak of the dissolution of the I into any kind of identification, you are still speaking of having detached yourself from it. So it is a contradiction that you speak of natural flow, because if it were so, you would simply blossom like the plant forms its flower, but you would not speak of naturally blossoming.
In order to detach yourself from an identification with your past self, it requires believing in this past identification. However, since it is impossible to reach a precise definition of the past self, you can only identify with what you believe to be your past self in the present.
This view is a Buddhist one and it has a lot to offer. However, I would argue that whenever you think you have understood something fundamental, found the stone of wisdom so to speak, you have already lost it again (also a Buddhist way of thinking about it).
I think it is entirely appropriate to use the I-form without inverted commas. I am real. I am alive. We couldn't talk to each other if I wasn't. The sun is real. It shines onto earth and it warms your skin. The coast is real and so is the water. The butter on the toast is real. So is the milk and the cow from where it comes.
There is always a possible, a probable and a preferred way of living life. What I favour does not exclude the other, namely the possible and the probable.
Thinking too much about oneself can be just as useless/useful as thinking too little.
it resonates with some aspects of buddhist teachings
but it was not invented by them and i would not credit them with my own view of this
because at the time
i had never encountered any of their writings
Be that as it may, wherever this view comes from, you recognise something true about it the moment you look into it. The fact that I am only able to look at my former self from my present perspective is an intuition that everyone has, but doesn't really deal with or rarely comes across such formulations. Personally, I first came across such expressions through intensive listening to Buddhist monks and I therefore attribute it to them without marginalising anyone else. I am also quite satisfied with the fact that it makes up a significant part of Buddhist teaching, as it opens up to me in a completely different way to Christian teaching.
Honour to whom honour is due. And vice versa.
ok, of course that makes sense
but i think generally it is misguided to ascribe specific ideas to specific sources
if the ideas are true and useful, they stand on their own
no "appeal to authority" needed
If I came across something you said you have found out by yourself, and I didn't find out myself but through a specific source, in this case listening to ordained monks, I don't reject the message only because it was presented to me by an authority. I have no problems to acknowledge the wisdom of someone - whether it may be a monk or a bus driver. The monk himself refers to what he had studied and accepted as true, often through scriptures (written by authors = authority).
I do that a lot. When I read something I tell the person of what this reminds me. There is nothing new under the sun and I like to give credit to those from whom I lend a special idea. I see nothing misguided about that.
agreed.
i pick up a lot of stuff from movies and television shows
but i have yet to find any idea that originated from a movie or television show
Are you saying that you also apply this to theologically motivated writings? I agree, they all refer to something that was said or written either before their time or in a different place.
If they had no reference point to something that already existed, they would have to have thought it first. But the idea that a person had an idea that had never been thought or formulated before cannot be true, if only because people grow up among people and are therefore under the influence of people from birth.
Whether they consciously or unconsciously draw on sources, they access them.
In order to prove that a person is the originator of a unique idea, there would have to be people who grew up outside of human society. In other words, they grew up without a mother or father, for example among animals. However, such a test group does not exist.
There is this story of a wolf girl who grew up among them. In order to be able to communicate with the girl, she first had to learn the human form of communication. The moment this happens, she is already under the influence of humans and their feelings and beliefs.
have you ever been in a situation where someone complements you on your dress and you simply thank them for the complement ?
sometimes they might ask, where did you buy that ?
and perhaps you made it yourself and you simply say "i made it myself"
but did you make the cloth ?
did you base your dress design on some combination of other dress designs you've seen ?
did you invent cloth ?
did you grow the cotton ?
who was the first person to grow cotton and spin it into thread ?
should you give them credit ?
Why does it bother you that I refer to sources?
You want me to be thankful for stand alone insights?
I am.
You don't want me to be thankful to people?
have you ever noticed how, although on first glance, the butter appears uniform, there are subtle variations within it ?
yup :)
the same is true of the cosmos itself