~ Who Defines You ~
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"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
Before you can fight strategically towards the right vision, before you can find the easy paths that will make you feel happy and satisfied, before you can tell if your dreams are really meant for “you”, you first need to know who you are… and there’s no better way to prove that you know someone than to either love them or hate them. This is based on the classic quote:
“You cannot love/hate someone if you don’t know who they are”
Again, one last time: You cannot truly love someone whom you don’t know. You can only love the idea of them, and that is not the same thing - not in the slightest. I will be looking to prove this point, multiple times, in multiple chapters…
But let me start by asking this question:
Have YOU ever asked someone who they are?
I want you to remember the last time you asked someone that question. Once you remember asking them, do one more thing for me: Tell me how they answered you. What did they say? Did they give you their name? Did they tell you what they do for a living? Their beliefs? What did they say? And one more question:
Have you ever noticed that nothing they say actually answers your question?
In truth, our language doesn’t even have words to describe WHO we really are. It only has words for Whats. For the most part, this is okay.
- Why equals “What are the reasons?” or “What caused this?”
- How means, “What methods were used?” or “What’s the plan?”
- When is “What time?”
- Where is “What place?”
- but WHO is much more difficult.
There is no direct translation from WHO to What. People value different things as measurements of WHO you are, and certain situations call for different answers.
For example, if I asked you WHO you are right now, you might give me your name, your occupation, your religion, your standards, your code of honor; on and on and on. Our capitalistic culture has become so obsessed with What we have that we’ve completely lost track of WHO we are.
Let’s imagine that the very instant you were conceived, an EXACT clone was made at the EXACT same time, down to the smallest measurements of time. Let’s say that this clone has lived the exact same life as you, had the same relationships, with the same people, at the same time, and all while doing the exact same things as you 24/7.
In short, let’s imagine that whatever you are or did, they also were, and did as well. This means that they even had the same role as you in your romantic partner’s life. Every trait that you have, physical or otherwise, they have too, and everything that you’ve had, including experiences, they’ve had also. Heck! They even pee at the same time as you, every day.
Now then… if… one day… your clone was to ask you if they could have sex with your partner, as a sort of “fill-in replacement for you”… what would your answer be?
Give me a serious answer here.
Think about it.
If you said yes… well… damn. I didn’t know that you were into that sort of thing.
But if you said “No.”, then one big question still remains:
“Why not?”
After all, What they are is equal to you in every way. According to most people, only Whats truly exist. Most people claim that What you are, IS WHO you are, and that there is no difference. But! If like with your clone, they are What you are, then they must be considered “you”, according to that philosophy. And if they’re “you”, and “you” are allowed to sleep with your partner, then what’s the problem with your clone sleeping with them as well? They're "you" after all, right? At least according to your measurements. So what's the problem? According to your measurements, “they” are “you”. You should be allowed to sleep with your partner if you want.
This is because Whats are not the problem. The problem that you're having, is with, a WHO.
The problem with pretending that WHOs don’t exist, and is everything must then be measured by Whats is you’ll only be using half of reality to make your decisions. If you only use Whats for your measurements, you’ll end up making crazy and stupid decisions in the long run; decisions that’ll end up hurting you emotionally, without you even realizing that it’s your fault.
That’s because Whats are fantastic for logical fulfillment, but they SUCK at creating emotional ones. WHOs, on the other hand, are great for emotional fulfillment, but are very hard to apply to our more logical subjects. Both are measurements to assess the world by, and both are needed, in unison, to create a worthwhile life for you, and those you love.
Using only Whats is like saying yes to your clone asking for sex, without knowing what they’re asking, and while thinking that YOU are the one who asked it, simply because you mismeasured the situation. Your clone is an example of measuring yourself only by What you are, but in terms of emotional satisfaction, that is often an incorrect unit of measurement to use. It’s kinda like trying to use inches in order to measure someone’s weight.
As such, when you’re trying to make good emotional decisions for the longterm success of you emotional well-being, you must try to measure the world using WHOs, which is something very few people know how to do anymore.
Don’t just treat yourself like a clone, or an external tool, when making your emotional decisions or measuring emotional subjects, because it will limit your ability to see the full picture. If you treat yourself as a clone you may not allow yourself to love (or in this case to “make love”) to the people you wish to be closest to.
Emotionally, basing your life only on Whats won’t end well. So let’s try this again.
WHO are you?
Remember: Your name, your life, or any other things you have, aren’t you. They’re YOURS. You have them. You own them, but they’re not WHO you are. They’re What you have. If I asked you for your name, I’d ask, “What is your name?” not "WHO is your name?". Your occupation? “What’s your occupation?” or “What do you do?”. These are not WHO you are. They are What you have. It’s like your shirt. You own it, and it can symbolize different things about you, but it isn’t you, specifically. It’s not even really a part of you. You have a shirt, but you could take it off. I don’t suggest that you do that right now. You’re busy reading my site, after all, but you could! It’s not imbued to your body. Even if it was, your body is not WHO you are. It’s just YOUR body. It's "yours," not "you."
Your body is a part of What you are, as a concept, and as a reality, but it’s not the same as WHO you are, as a concept that’s almost entirely placed in the unconscious and emotional part of your brain. WHOs are a very subtle unit of measurement in our psyche, but they’re still used by all of us, and the differences between these measurements (WHOs and Whats) are often the main source of our dissatisfaction in life. Since most people know how to use the conscious props in life, I’ve spent many more years mastering how to use the unconscious ones. Magician’s like having unheard of techniques and secrets, because nobody can block your path if they don’t know what path you’re on. Now, I’ve decided to write this site, to help you master those secrets, too.
And in keeping with that philosophical goal, from now on, when I speak of “you” I’ll be speaking for the more unconscious, and emotional part of your brain, not the logical and conscious one.
I understand. This goes against everything that we’re taught in the world today, so I don’t expect you to believe it right now, but you wouldn’t be on the third chapter of such a crazy sounding book if you were not in pain. I do not ask that you believe what is written here just yet. I simply wish and hope that you will continue to read, despite the frustration, doubt, and likely the disgust that you feel right now, until you start to feel a more positive connection with what I am saying. The sense of warmth that came to others with my lessons will reach you eventually, and soon after you start to feel that joy, your mind will become much more aware of how true these words are that oppose your society’s mistaken lies and ignorant mistruths. You’ve spent your whole life being taught a lesson, and now I’m asking you to unlearn it.
I’m not an idiot. I know that the greatest successes don’t happen overnight,
…And neither will this.
So take your time.
Some people believe that your actions measure who you are, others your intentions, others your opinions. Some people will evaluate you by your race, your gender, your age, and so on. We call these last people “prejudice,” but we’re all in the same boat. People judge, and they do so without significant evidence. If you can’t tell me WHO you are, don’t ever claim to hate yourself, because you don’t even know what a “yourself” is. You can’t know if you hate something, without first identifying what that something is and how it impacts you, and right now you have no idea WHO you are. To be clear, while I’m saying that you don’t know WHO you are, you may still dislike What you are, AND be justified in feeling that way, but we have many chapters to help you deal with that later on in this book, and to even prove yourself wrong in the next ones.
Still, when it comes to what maters most, you don't hate yourself yet, and you cannot possibly comprehend what that means, or what it would mean if you truly did. Maybe you will come to dislike yourself once you’ve met them. I doubt that you will, but the only thing that I can promise you is that you aren’t hating them right now.
And, AGAIN, to really drive this home because I am not supernatural, psychic, or a guru:
Let me make this clear:
I am NOT talking about spirits or your soul. I don't believe in such things. Besides, What spirit you have, or YOUR soul isn't you, they're YOURS. What souls you might have would still be “What you have.” Even if they did exist, they would not be WHO you are. They would just be another What. No... When I speak of WHOs, I speak of perhaps the most important concept of life, one that seems to have been lost to time, long, long ago.
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Here’s a cool way of thinking about it: If you have people that truly love you, even if you lost a limb tomorrow, they’d still love you. If you were a juggler and you lost an arm, those that loved you would still love you. I mean, perhaps you could still figure out a way to juggle, maybe one-handed or with your hand and your nose like a seal. Still, at the end of the day, while you’re practicing that and are unable to do your usual tricks, they’ll still love you, and this extends far further than you realize.
If a family member that YOU loved developed dementia or Alzheimer's, you’d still love them. They could have no memories, and yet you'd still love them. You’d fight, tooth and nail, day in and day out, until there was nothing left you could do for them. You would do everything in your power to ensure that they continue to live comfortably and safely because you love them. They don’t even have their memories, something that we all think of as an essential part of WHO we are, yet we still love them.
Even if this family member were to die, you’d still ensure that they had a proper burial. You’d spread the word as far and wide as you could, calling all the people who loved them just the same, so that they could say their thanks, and regrets, and promise to use that love that they feel for your family member and carry it on in their name. They promise to carry it, and then pass it on to the future generations, and they do it because they love your family member. You still love your dead family member. They don’t have their lives anymore, yet you still love them. If your life doesn’t define who you are… what does?
Trick question. There is no What that'll answer that.
Because the answer, is a WHO.
In this book, we'll discuss the displacement of taking what you think or feel about a person's Whats and how you unconsciously connect them to their WHOs and vice versa. We'll also discuss taking how you feel about the idea of someone or something's WHO and misplacing it on to WHO they are, in reality. What thought you have in your mind, is not necessarily the same as WHO they are in fact. Your What is a What, and their WHO is a WHO, and Whats and WHOs are never the same thing.
Your shirt isn’t WHO you are, but I can still find out several other Whats from it. If you’re wearing a movie shirt, I might hypothesize that What you have is a preference for that movie (maybe it's even your favorite movie, right?). It’s better than a random guess at what movie you like. The same can be said of buying a shirt because all your friends have it. You may pick up different habits, opinions, world views, and so much more from your friends. You may even pick some of these up out of spite for your enemies.
Something about this hurts me, in my soul. What hurts is that, with most things left unexamined, we lose them out of ignorance or fear, but when it comes to WHO we are, we just don't have those as an appropriate excuse. We ask and are asked back WHO we are so often, and consistently, and it's seemingly a fair question to ask and not something to be afraid of or that would put people on edge. And clearly, we're asking about it, so it's not like we're ignorant of its significance. The problem soon arises with this, as the question soon becomes clear: "How do we not notice that the responses other people give never actually answer this question?"
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If you were hungry, and you asked me if the apple I held was tasty, and then I responded, "Oh yeah! It looks beautiful, really. I just love this shade of red." The chances are that you'd look at me, all confused, and state, "Wait, but... That's not what I asked!" Yet, this is exceptionally close to what's happening with WHOs. We're viewing the same subject but using two different measurement types. In the case of the apple, the measurements are taste and sight. In terms of people, it's WHOs and Whats.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
So why do we notice with the apple but not the people? The sad fact is that there only seems to be one explainable cause. It seems to me that nobody actually cares about the answer. Think about it. We ask people WHO they are, and then they give us What name they have, and a few minutes later? We even forget that! Most people, they see you, they hear you, and then? They ignore you. People seem to only care about What you have to offer them, What you don't... or perhaps even What you may need to take from them, and they decide whether they love you or hate you based purely on that. The worst part? They don't even realize it. They all think they're being pinnacles of humane relationships and nonprejudicial assessments, but nowadays? Nobody cares about WHO you are, not even you. Why would you care about how much money you have to offer yourself, or what achievements you've made in your name, if What you had wasn't somehow how you measure yourself? Money, achievements, failures, and mistakes... they're all... things.
They're all Whats.
You wouldn't be scared of failing or feeling insufficient if you weren't basing your life on the Whats that you have achieved, or What you have done wrong. If your measurements were about whether or not you're a great person because of WHO you are, many of life's worries would never get to you. You could chase after your desires with patience, persistence, despite of already being content with What it is you already have, because What you have DOESN'T MATTER!
People's lack of care for our WHOs can be seen in the fact that our language has no words for it. How can something be so insignificant to us... (us greedy assholes), that we don't even have it contained within our most basic form of communication, such as words?
I mean, it is a construct, so making words for it is impossible, but that still doesn't explain why people aren't asking about its absence. Words for emotions, such as the word "love," are terms given to complex sensations and constructs. So when someone asks, "How in love are you?" we can't help but answer an entirely different question… such as what we would do to prove our love. The difference here is that most people notice that. They're aware that giving a precise answer about love is impossible. Yet, they expect people, even including themselves, to do so with WHOs. This even happens at critical points in our lives, without people batting a single eyelash over it, such as during an important job interview. Why do you think the task "Tell us about yourself." is so difficult? We may be able to list off What we have, such as prior experiences or skill sets (which is usually how we answer), but somewhere... somewhere buried deep, DEEP DOWN inside of us, when the time comes that we really need to think about it, and ONLY when we actually give a damn (Like when money is on the line, yet another What), do we realize how impossible of a task that really is. Only when it benefits us, do we sometimes, not even all the time then, notice how little we actually know about our own WHOs.
And honestly, aside from me, I've never seen a single soul put effort into seeing another person's true WHO, at all.
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For example, if you're honest, did you come to this site because you wanted to buy me, or to buy from me? Are you here to listen to me, or are you here to listen to my life's philosophy and to take the knowledge that, if you had heard What was said and truly listened, may help benefit you and your life? Are you here for WHO I am, or are you here for What benefits I have to offer you, What you may learn, What knowledge you may take away from this site?
It's okay. Everyone is here for my Whats. They wouldn't need my help or this site if they weren't. What's beautiful about seeing so many WHOs in my life is that there's pretty much no What that'll make me disappointed in you… There are some. Some exist, but only a few.
As you cannot give what you don't have, it‘s essential to have the key pieces to a successful life, in order to lend that lifestyle, and those pieces, to those who need them. If you genuinely wish to be comfortable with WHO you are and to be able to reach out and confidently grab whatever it is you truly want and need, and to be successful, the best way to hit all of those birds with one stone is by loving yourself unconditionally. This is because the people who love themselves for WHO they really are, are far more comfortable acting on and obtaining their goals, dreams, and aspirations. In all honesty though my friends, learning to love yourself for WHO you are, unconditionally, is very difficult. Many things can go wrong on your path to the final destination, which is fulfillment. There are many lies that people will tell you about what the correct path really is at all, and if you want to know if you are truly worthy of love, the only way to prove that you are, is to love yourself, because the only person that you can be sure is telling the truth is yourself. Since most people haven't read this site and don't even know what a WHO really is at all, you certainly can't trust in their declaration of loving you, for WHO, you, are.
Even if everything about the idea matches with What you are, it’s not “you”, even if your concept of yourself matches with every What, it still isn’t accurate. It’s just an idea. This interpretation of you can be seen as your “clone idea”. Some people just have better replications than others. But while it may match What you are, it isn’t you, because it doesn’t have the right WHO.
Like an outsider, you've only ever treated yourself as being only a Whats. You're treating yourself as jit’s a resource or an item to be used in order to feel good, either in the moment or in the future, but the truth is that you're so much more than that. Your clone is your clone, but YOU... are you. Your idea of yourself is your idea, but YOU are YOU, and right now, those are two very different things.
Never mistake What you have, even experiences, ideas or emotions, for WHO, YOU, ARE.
And again, WHOs don’t actually exist. They aren’t an essence or an item. They may not even be a universal truth, but they are a truth. At the very least, they’re a concept, and they're a concept that no one can escape, because it’s not a rational thought, and it’s not a conscious one either. You can’t choose to stop thinking about WHOs just like you can’t choose to stop your own heart from beating by ignoring its rhythm. You have no choice in if your brain will use WHOs or not. You can only choose to IGNORE the fact that those thoughts keep popping up. Sadly, that’s what everyone seems to have started doing. They sacrificed their very own, fucking identities, in the name of ignorant certainty. You're scared to know who you are. "What happens if I‘m not good enough?" My question to you is which scares you more: the possibility of feeling insufficient, or choosing the certainty of being insufficient out of fear?
Because right now, you've become truly insufficient at helping anyone stay happy, even yourself. How can you make yourself happy, if you haven’t even met them yet?
"What IS in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet."
- William Shakespeare
The second thing you must know is this: Anything can be seen as complex, and it’s easy, because of that, to let yourself be illogical and not think through its entire identity or meaning. However, a person who acts without an entirety of both logic and illogic, is much more likely to fail because all they are left to operate on is their own, often highly vague, assumptions. The more vague your observations, the less reliable your results. My friends, what’s important in life isn’t if you dislike something or even if you like it. What matters is what it is; if you're honestly trying, that’s a question that you’ll have a very tough time answering, because there are COUNTLESS INTERPRETATIONS for everything in this world.
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Here, have a cup.
Let’s say you had a cup, a teacup let’s say, and that you smashed it on the ground into five pieces. Now you have to ask yourself, “Is that a broken teacup, or just five whole pieces of a teacup?”
And I know what you’re thinking. “Whole pieces? Connor, there’s no such thing as a whole piece.” Ah! But imagine this: Now you take one of those pieces and smash it into five more! You have to ask yourself even more questions now. “Is this nine whole pieces of a teacup? Four whole pieces of a teacup and one broken piece? Or is it just, a broken, teacup?” You take things apart twice, and suddenly your whole world is flipped upside down. Can a piece be whole? If it can... what is a "complete" item, and what's an incomplete one? When are things actually WHOLE, and when are they truly BROKEN? When it's broken twice, are the smaller pieces... "pieces", or does size not actually matter in terms of completeness? Is an atom still considered "a whole piece"? It has a name… does that make it whole? Look above. Read again, and tell me if you can answer down below, in the comments.
I'll be honest, I don't think that you can answer this. I don't think there is an answer. This could be why people don’t actually look into things objectively all day long. If they did, it might melt their brains, haha.
You can make anything, or any thought, seem complex, or incomplete, by breaking it apart enough, like a teacup being broken down into its atoms and beyond. The only question is if you can place all of your smaller concepts back together again, in the correct forms that create a much larger idea and the newer, more expansive concepts that go with it. Can you take all of those atoms, and somehow, against all odds, place them back, piece by piece, until it forms the teacup again? Or is a teacup just too complex of a subject for you? It's true. Even the simple things can be made complex, buuuuuut...
Alas, a teacup isn’t whole either; it’s just a "piece" of tableware, for the dining room, which is only one room, and a piece of your first floor, which is one of, let’s say, 2 floors. Then there’s your yard, and your driveway, and the neighbor’s yard, the neighbor after that, and the town, and the county, and the state, and on and on and on, to the edge of the universe.
The universe isn’t the end of it either though. Things may stop, or perhaps things exist outside of our reality, other dimensions, let’s say, expanding outward and onward, infinitely and forever. At the very least, beyond that, is the unknown, and who knows how expansive and infinite that is. Yet, in the end, the teacup is still a part of it all, just a single piece in the vastness of everything. Even after all this zooming out, it's still there. You see? It’s simple. It's a very tiny, little teacup… just a small piece of this large, ever unexplored world... Or is it something more complex than that?
This tea cup is an example of what happens when you assess the world through Whats. Whats are never entirely whole, and yet they’re never entirely broken either. Only psychological constructs are whole in every stretch of the imagination. They do not “break” into each of their subcategories; they only contain each subcategory like a small jar being placed inside of much larger ones. They do not break into smaller concepts, they only contain them.
In short, every measurement that you use for logical purposes is arbitrary because it exists in infinite phases, and you cannot directly measure the infinite parts of infinity with a single unit.
An inch may be a 12th of a foot, and a foot may be a third of a yard, but if we were to remove all the concepts that we’ve agreed on as working for distance, then we’d have to start from scratch, because they’re all just arbitrary comparisons with each other (like, REALLY, the number TWELVE, that’s what our system decided to go with; at least the metric system used tens). If we started with a different origin for the units to convert from, all measurement systems would likely have been very different from the ones we use today.
Think about it: there is no “inch item” that is only an inch long, An inch cannot be cut to a shorter size or stretched into a longer one. In terms of Whats everything is both whole and broken. Therefore, your measurements for them are obsolete, because you’re trying to measure a reality with infinite interpretations. An inch is just some random name we gave to an agreed-upon distance that doesn’t really EXIST anywhere outside of our cultural imagination. The same can be said of temperature, volume… or any other measurement of What something is or has. What size? Arbitrary. What speed? Arbitrary. The units, and especially the space between one unit and the next, is nothing short of an imaginary game that adults play to feel intelligent. They are not attached to anything real, but merely a cultural agreement that we dare not deviate from for fear of our own ignorance in life.
What you are is neither complete nor incomplete. In terms of logic, even you are arbitrary.
Are you a complete failure, or an incomplete success?
Are you a complete idiot, or an incomplete genius?
As far as you know, you’re probably both.
Now, does that mean that you AREN’T only an idiot?
No.
It just means that you’ll never know if that’s true or not if you’re only using Whats.
WHOs are the foundation of an individual’s reality. They are subjective, but they’re so subjective, that they are “objectively unique to you”. Because of how unique the measurement is to your brain specifically, they’ve become “subjectively objective” in terms of your uses for them, to the point that they’re the only unit of measurement you can know will work for you at all times.
Because it’s based on something so totally and viscerally real to you, and is unchanging by nature to the point where nothing can break their concept - not you, not your fears, not even all of the tragedies of the world are able break them - they’ve become something that is only whole and never broken. To that degree, they are undeniably useful as a unit of measurement. An unchanging reality, even one that’s only real to you, is still unchanging, and with that, comes a pillar of support that will always be there fall back on no matter what, so long as you’re looking for a subjective and emotional reality. With that in mind, WHOs are the perfect tools to make you feel fulfilled, while Whats will bring you the logical requirements to make that feeling legitimate, and not delusional.
“Nothing is whole, and nothing broken” (Hikaru Ultra Blue). None of your thoughts have been completed, as you still have more to learn and to add to what you know now; yet, all of them have been completed, as they function exactly as their role demands, and you have not learned more than you have learned (obviously). The key here is that these roles will change, and with them, the definition of a "complete" thought, and the definition of an "incomplete" one, will change also. It all depends on how greedy you are, and how far you're willing to go, in the name of "completion". Your journey will always end when you tell it to, even if it shouldn't. All you have to do, is stop trying... to grow.
All words have 1 meaning, and yet... they all have several, and yet... they all have none. You cannot name something that exists in infinite phases. No definition could encapsulate all of infinity into a single word. There is no true name for an item that is both always complete and yet never will be.
And all items are both of these things. All of them.
Tiny yet big. Large yet small. It's simply complex, and yet complexingly simple.
But at the end of the day, all you need to know is this:
It's a teacup.
And what that means, is up to you.
As is the way of everything.
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Some bad news for you, due to the fact that everything has infinite interpretations, is that no one has the right to ask for love - from the rest of the world anyways - without first learning to love themselves. With the concept of the teacup, things become problematic. You have to wonder if people are feeling good about you, or just good about a few of the traits you have. Are they feeling good about the cup, or are they just feeling good about the handle? There are infinite pieces of What you are, infinite pieces, and all of them can be mistaken for WHO you are, as a whole. Heck! They don't even need to be your pieces, to become attached to your WHO! In fact, Whats are not made of the same material as WHOs at all, but we'll be getting into that later on, if you buy the membership.
In the end, you can't feel justified in asking for something you aren't worthy of, and you can't be certain that you're worthy of love when told by others because love and WHOs are both constructs. They cannot be measured directly. They can only be observed through experience. As such, people may "think" that they're in love with you when in truth, they're not in love with you, but they are in love with the idea of you. This is called “displacement" (“APA Dictionary”). It's a psychological phenomenon that occurs when you take the feelings that you're having for one thing and place them onto something else. This often happens when someone loves What you are, or What they think of you, and then they believe that they actually love you, for WHO you are, even though they've just displaced their feelings from somewhere else.
An easy example of this is being upset by something that happened at work and then taking it out on your partner when you get home. You really do have something to be angry about. It's just that you "displaced" that emotion on to the partner at home, someone who has done nothing wrong, rather than on the employee or customer that you are actually upset with. This often happens because the rules state that you cannot take it out on the customer. "They're always right," after all.
Do you know what the worst news is?
WHOs do not follow the usual, more examined rules.
WHOs are not a part of the teacup. They're an even more complex idea than that, one that we'll need to discuss in an entirely separate chapter, when the time comes.
A teacup, What a teacup is, is simply a list of traits, including "identifiers" or "identifying traits". That's how you know What a teacup is. That's how the world works in terms of Whats. All traits are simply smaller or larger forms of another trait, more broken apart or more put together. What frustration is, is like a mixture of fear and hope. What a teacup is, is like a mixture of clay and paint. When using traits as a unit of measurement, they will only lead you, to other traits, nothing else, and especially NOT a full identity. Traits are merely the signals that reveal the fact that an identity is there, but they cannot tell you WHO that identity actually is. They can only tell you what the traits of it are. Whats are the signals for WHOs, as well as the subcategories and overarching themes of other Whats. This is the detail that makes this book so long.
So again, an idea is an idea, and a reality is a reality. They're two separate things, and that allows for displacement. So if you mistake how you feel about reality, and WHO someone really is, it's often due to you "displacing" how you should be feeling towards your own imagination, and how you imagined them to be. The difference between thought and reality can be plainly seen in that not everything happens as you imagined it to be, or as you thought it would be. Your vision does not directly impact reality because they are not the same thing, nor even occur in the same spots. If you feel hatred or discomfort towards the idea of who you are, then that's fine. Just understand that it is highly unlikely for you to feel negatively toward who you actually are, in reality. This book is also partly designed to help you meet yourself, and then fall in love platonically, with your true WHO.
The art of embracing the unexamined will lead us to great empowerment in this world, as a way to protect the progress and potential of those we care for. As such, starting with WHOs seems like an easy first step because WHOs occur within all other unexamined items. In fact, they occur in all items, plain and simple. This makes them and Whats the perfect props for all of life’s magic tricks.
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You see, WHOs exist on a higher plane of observation than most people view in their everyday lives. I wouldn't call it a spiritual plane; I'm too scientific and nonreligious for that sort of thing; they're certainly not souls or spirits, but WHOs do exist. They're just a different type of thing than most people realize.
A soda bottle is a physical thing. If you look more abstractly, you'll see that actions and situations are things. They aren't material things, but they do take place in our physical reality. Ideas are mental things. Emotions are "soulful" or emotional things, but WHOs aren't even that. They exist somewhere beyond that boundary, looking in. So if you can see things from the perspective of a WHO, you'll be seeing more things in life from the outside in, rather than the inside out. You'll have a much better view of how things truly work, together, as a whole. Luckily, you are a WHO, and so this is something you're very much capable of doing. Everyone is capable of it. They just don't know it yet, because, of course, it has been left unexamined. That is why it is on this site, for its power, and for its invisibility.
In fact, there are "studies showing that when people are led to feel uncertain about WHO they are, they are more likely to identify with their cultural group, especially if that group has a clear sense of boundaries, expectations, and cohesion (Hogg et al., 2007; chapter 9)" (Hogg qt. Greenberg et al. 61-61). Yes, I used a college textbook's paraphrasing of an empirical study as a direct quote for my online article. Talk about confusing, huh? To be honest, I'm reasonably confident that I didn't even cite it correctly during my in-text citation!
To be clear, though, I have also read Hogg's article directly, and, to no surprise on the audience's part, I agreed with my college textbook authors. This quote from them on the link between an individual's uncertain identity, and their need to gain some form of new identity from within the groups of others, of course, would explain the extended rise of so many "us versus them" tribes popping up all over our country lately.
These simple, often hatred-based dynamics, have become a part of everyday political discussions. You're either with them or against them. You're either with a group's message, or you're against it. There is no middle ground, and no matter which side you choose to be on, you will be hated by members of the opposing community. The extremists from each group turn an otherwise healthy request for belonging, into the source of near cult-like antics.
This extends from Feminism, the LGBTQ+ community, PETA, and the Black Lives Matter movement, and YES, definitely conservative groups as well, with neo-nazis, the KKK, and the Red/Black Pills.
. . .
The world has become quite an interesting place. Instead of turning off an electronic, or partnering up with real friends in real life, now people just.... start a charity and political movement.
And of course, because no one knows WHO they are anymore, everyone needs a tribe to fit in with. In turn, everything is political, because it makes their lives easier. It's just a lazy man's way of escaping his own insecurity and lack of direction. They don't know their purpose in life? Great! They just let these other guys determine it for them. Much easier. All the groups ask in return is you stay a part of the tribe, and luckily for you, the "boundaries" for these tribes are simple. If they're not with you, they're against you. The "expectations" are clear. If they don't agree with you, if they seem too different from you in any way, then you're expected to either punish them or fix them from their wicked ways… During times where people are more focused on learning about What they should have, rather than uncovering an internal sense of WHO they are, things will become overly political. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and sadly, it likely isn’t the last.
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And as for "cohesion"...
Well, whenever you find yourself losing a public argument, simply use your most stereotyped community trait and say something like, "Oh! You're just disagreeing with me because I'm young." (though, of course, in a more subtle way than that) and you'll see an army's true cohesion firsthand, all by itself. These tribes are like a well-oiled war machine when they want to be.
Everybody is sticking steadfastly to their groups, and yet they idolize the rebels.
Then "the rebels" become a group, and suddenly things start repeating themselves all over again.
My point here is that not knowing WHO you are doesn't just affect you, your freedom, and your dreams. It also affects everyone that you come into contact with, either contacted directly or indirectly.
When you get your WHOs done right, everyone around you prospers. If not, everyone suffers. This book will help you fix that problem on your own, but that's not to say that this problem is only your own. Nobody can progress, or discover anything exceptionally new, if everyone is looking in the same places and doing the exact same things. But again, just because you aren't sticking with a group doesn't mean that you will suddenly and consciously understand WHO you are. This is just the first step of many.
Please note, WHO you are isn't so much a thing to be measured as it is an understanding to be had. WHO you are is ineffable. You cannot measure a WHO. You can only estimate the relationship a WHO has with its Whats and with other WHOs, and so, by knowing the difference between WHO someone is and What they have, you can make socializing, and getting along with, nearly anyone (including yourself) much easier than it is for others because they don't even know how to view it. Remember this: What's impressive about WHOs is that while they cannot be measured, they can still be observed, and they can be loved.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet."
My friends, Shakespeare's quote isn't a question to be solved. It is the answer to be understood.
"A WHAT... is in a name, and so, that which we call a rose, by any other name, can still smell as sweet."
So let's forget the Whats,
relax,
and smell the roses.
