@xelimious
Thanks for writing this--I'm finding this discussion really interesting. If I'm understanding, you feel like you want to have a sense of self and a purpose for being here. But it's really difficult to latch onto anything for multiple reasons:
1) Self is causally conditioned
Whatever you come up with might just be something socially conditioned that was molded onto you rather than something that you created or that belongs exclusively to you. If you were raised under different circumstances or experienced different things, you might have become a completely different person. Even if you do something, the fact of whether or not you wanted to do it might not be something in your control.
2) Life is impermanent
It's hard to know whether anything you do really matters given the inevitability of death and uncertainty of what happens afterwards. Maybe it would be comforting and simplifying to believe that certain actions lead to a positive afterlife, but you're not really on board with that kind of assumption, however pleasant it might be.
3) Self only points to a collection of transient things
It feels like if you try to identify your essence or true identity, the only thing you can point to is a bunch of different actions, feelings, and thoughts. But, those things are temporary and not unique to yourself, so they don't offer a sort of unique/permanent foundation for meaning or identity.
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I tend to have the following kinds of thoughts when I grapple with these types of issues.
1) Whether or not I know what I am, I tend to feel things and care about my feelings
Regardless of whether or not I have an identity or purpose, I know that I'm seeking a certain kind of happiness or peace. And there are practical things on a day-to-day basis that increase the likelihood of me feeling good. Like, more often than not, I'm happier if I'm getting enough sleep and remembering to eat. So even if my entire reality is in shambles, I still go to sleep and eat food and so on because those are part of the handful of reliable/consistent things that tend to work and be practically helpful regardless of what else is going on. :)
2) Self/goals are moving targets that have to be reidentified periodically
Something I personally love to do is to sit down and make all kinds of lists, maps, models, and systems to try to structure and document my current sense of who I am, what I want, and what things I believe will make me happy.
It tends to usually involve defining dimensions or categories that I find to be conducive to my happiness when they're functioning well (e.g. physical well-being, work/to-do list, social safety, theory/models, sources of immersion/fun, self-expression, offering something helpful to other people).
What I notice though is that without fail, almost every system I create stops working within about 2-4 weeks. :) There are always new experiences, feelings and thoughts flashing in and out of existence, and changing circumstances in my surroundings. It's sort of like, the system I created was built on the assumption of a certain set of internal/external starting conditions. But if those conditions change, then the model is no longer relevant.
This doesn't stop me from creating models or finding that process helpful. I just create with the understanding that I'm going to have to do it again at a later time. It's not a flaw or problem for me, any more than I see it as a problem that I have to eat meals every day (rather than eating once and having that fulfill my hunger forever).
To give another example, I'm writing this post now, but maybe in a few hours/days I'm going to feel disgusted with it or repelled by it and want to let go of it or sort of dissociate myself from it. Sometimes I feel disgusted with models in general. There isn't anything in my life that I haven't gotten tired of and wanted to throw out the window at some point or another. :P There are so many dimensions on which I'm oscillating.
It ends up feeling to me like in the midst of that chaos, the most useful ability is just being able to discern how I'm currently feeling and whether or not a given thing aligns/harmonizes with my present feelings. It's also really important/valuable to me to feel like it's okay to drop things if they no longer work, rather than forcing myself to be stable/constant if it feels insincere or impractical. In that respect, all of the analysis you're doing to deconstruct reality and destroy a fixed selfhood actually feels like a blessing... because it offers support for a more present-centered/moment-to-moment approach.
3) Despite impermanence, I sometimes still perceive progress or evolution
Something I learned about in school was the idea of the scientific method as an iterative/cyclical process: you have a theory for how things are, you test it by gathering data, you compare the theory/data to see how well they match, you revise your theory to try to reflect the data, and then the process repeats.
What I find really interesting is the idea that there aren't any final truths in science. Whatever theory you have is just the current/best version, but if new data comes in that changes the picture, it's understood that the theory might get scrapped or revised in favor of a better one.
But this doesn't mean that everything is completely unknowable or that there is nothing being gained. Over time, the theories become much more sophisticated/nuanced, they yield better results, they work better with reality, and they reflect the impact of lots of really tiny shifts/improvements that might be happening very gradually. It's sort of like water eroding rock to create a canyon. (And maybe every now and then, there are breakthroughs where things move really quickly.)
Sometimes because it's all happening so slowly, it appears as though no progess is being made and you're just flailing around in circles. But other times, if you compare against something a year ago or five years ago, it's possible to see that the overall picture has become much more refined, new methods have been developed, or certain problems aren't as impossible as they used to be.
4) Some parts of myself do not belong to me and cannot be controlled
On the one hand, I sometimes like to think of myself as someone who is making decisions, doing things, planning, thinking, organizing, controlling, and manipulating circumstances according to my liking.
On the other hand, there's another side of myself that feels more emotional in nature that just kind of bubbles up and *happens to me* and is what it is. And it's not something that I can fully control. It's almost like the more I try to control it, the more it resists and lashes out in rebellion as if to say that it's more powerful than me.
This is where I've found a lot of really interesting applications and intersections with Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, and Jungian psychology. I tend to think of theistic religion as describing this "not-me" aspect and some best practices for relating to this dimension. The qualities of it are that it's more powerful than me (omnipotent), it sometimes embodies a much deeper understanding than what I'm able to recognize consciously (omniscient), and it tends to point me in directions that are worthwhile and beneficial if I apply myself to them (benevolent). The attitude I have toward it is one of reverence and wanting to have a certain submissiveness, trust, or harmony with it even if I can't fully understand, describe, justify things in an airtight way. In this context, concepts like grace, humility, faith, and acceptance start to feel like they have some practical meaning. As a result, I can read devotional texts and feel really moved and supported by them on a personal level, and yet still find myself agreeing with atheistic critiques of what I feel to be a "straw man" understanding of religion.
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Apologies for writing so much and hijacking your thread. I just really love this topic. :)
