[split] Sanity -- from the Humanities Zoo thread

[Yelleryella123]

...... that's what I think about who we really are: that we are fluid, shaping. That we don't really know who we are until we're finished.

we are fluid, shaping.
Exactly. We aren't molds and our brains are plastic. (check out The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doige, great neuroplasticity examples)
Language and culture shape our perception but nothing is absolute.

That we don't really know who we are until we're finished.
If we go about life with the attitude that we will never know who we really are until we are finished.. than we will never know. I think the key is to try to exist in each moment in search of who we are. To practice a level of awareness that allows us see into our own behavior, why we think the way we do and why we do the things we do. I think that is the only way to "know" our "self" and transcend at least some of our programming.