I’ll also add a comment in relation to Richard D’Ambrosio’s comment and my reply to him (not sure how to catch you both in one Substack reply) which you may appreciate. As I work my way through Paul Tillich, I find him expressing my attitude towards self as the cornerstone of modern existentialism —
(Tillich’s prose is a little dense, I can’t tell if he’s referencing Heidegger or Sartre, neither of whom I care for in the least FWIW)
“the essence of man is his existence.” This sentence is like a flash of light which illuminates the whole Existentialist scene. One could call it the most despairing and the most courageous sentence in all Existentialist literature. What it says is that there is no essential nature of man, except in the one point that he canmake of himself what he wants. Man creates what he is. Nothing is given to him to determine his creativity. The essence of his being—the “should-be,” “the ought-to-be,”—is not something which he finds; he makes it. Man is what he makes of himself. And the courage to be as oneself is the courage to make of oneself what one wants to be.
Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be (The Terry Lectures Series) (p. 150). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
the interesting thing about the "who" question is -- how complicated do we need to make it?
1. I am age/race/job/hobby/car/house/diet/travel/family/politics/religion/etc.
2. I am a scout. warrior. builder. leader. etc.
3. I am part of nature
Those are exceptional “whats.”
The Who is the catalyst…
Appreciate your thoughtful engagement!
I’ll also add a comment in relation to Richard D’Ambrosio’s comment and my reply to him (not sure how to catch you both in one Substack reply) which you may appreciate. As I work my way through Paul Tillich, I find him expressing my attitude towards self as the cornerstone of modern existentialism —
(Tillich’s prose is a little dense, I can’t tell if he’s referencing Heidegger or Sartre, neither of whom I care for in the least FWIW)
“the essence of man is his existence.” This sentence is like a flash of light which illuminates the whole Existentialist scene. One could call it the most despairing and the most courageous sentence in all Existentialist literature. What it says is that there is no essential nature of man, except in the one point that he canmake of himself what he wants. Man creates what he is. Nothing is given to him to determine his creativity. The essence of his being—the “should-be,” “the ought-to-be,”—is not something which he finds; he makes it. Man is what he makes of himself. And the courage to be as oneself is the courage to make of oneself what one wants to be.
Tillich, Paul. The Courage to Be (The Terry Lectures Series) (p. 150). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.