On being a self pt. 2

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
    enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

2. Identity

At a retreat in UK sometime last year, a speaker shared his journey to faith. He recounted the moment it began - lying awake at night in his university dorm room, he realised how inconceivably terrifying it was to think that no one in the world could see inside of him, apart from himself. How unbearably alone he felt. An unspeakable heaviness.

And that story really resonated with me. The thought of how very lonely it is to be a self, in a world of seven billion other selves. An infinite deck of cards thrown up into the air, tossed by the wind - and descending, each one on its own course. No two the same.

Somewhere deep to our defences, lying dormant, is a longing to be known as we truly are. But what is the "self" in us that needs knowing? Where does "I" end and where does "not I" begin? Pascal muses:

 What is the self? A man goes to the window to see the people passing by; if I pass by, can I say he went there to see me? No, for he is not thinking of me in particular. But what about a person who loves someone for the sake of her beauty; does he love her? No, for smallpox, which will destroy beauty without destroying the person, will put an end to his love for her. And if someone loves me for my judgement or my memory, do they love me? me, myself? No, for I could lose these qualities without losing my self. Where then is this self, if it is neither in the body nor the soul? And how can one love the body or the soul except for the sake of such qualities, which are not what makes up the self, since they are perishable? Would we love the substance of a person's soul, in the abstract, whatever qualities might be in it? That is not possible, and it would be wrong. Therefore we never love anyone, but only qualities.

Somehow, we know that who we are goes above and beyond our qualities, i.e. our personality. That you are more than the sum of your affect, behaviour and cognition. More than anything that could ever be phrased in words, envisioned in art, re-enacted through interpretive dance.

That no matter how tightly you embrace someone, you could never engulf a person whole, crawl into his skin, see through his eyes, think with his mind - as much as you understand them, you could never truly understand what it is like to be them. And even if you could, would you still remain you? (A scenario now more plausible than ever before apparently, according to this article.)

Questions. What is identity? How do I identify myself - or rather, what do I identify myself by? What makes me - anyone - matter, in either sense of the word? Do we matter? Should we matter? Are we made to matter? We know so little of what, who we are.

I wish I understood more. But all remains uncertain to me save the knowledge that there is a core to all things. An apple. The Earth. Existence. And that all questions are satisfied and searchings stilled every moment my eyes lift, and I find my self held secure, suspended within a sunbeam-gaze of perfect love. An object knows its purpose only through the eyes of its Creator. For now I see in a mirror dimly, but then -

The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

Even as I have been fully known.