You are identified as soon as you are born  then you are given a name and time marches on as you take your place in the world. First you live through your parents and friends expectations and then you search for your own.

IF we mature we consider not just our identity as self but also how we identify with others.

I think someone once said there is no such thing as original thought, but someone will always be the first to write it down and claim it.

That being said, perhaps we are all like a complex computer that has limitless information and experiences that await us. Our identity becomes how we process life.

Although we believe that each of us is a unique individual, it is difficult if not impossible to determine exactly what our unqiueness consists of. To act spontaneously, right from the depth of the unconceptualized experience, seems to be the best way of discovering our unique self. This is what artists do.

Uniqueness, however, makes us alone and lonely because there is no-one else exactly like us. To overcome the loneliness of uniqueness, many of us resort to uniformity and concormity, thereby denying their uniqueness and creativeness.

There is, however, one way of being unique and not being not alone.

If we realize that we are unique parts of the same greater whole, then we are united by sameness as well as separated by uniqueness. And when we realize that the greater whole diversfied and "uniquefied" itself in order to experience itself uniquely in as many forms as possible, and experiences itself uniquely in and through us, then we are ecstatically unique and the same—at the same time.

We are story machines.

Spirituality is meaning as it travels through our lives.  And spirituality is transmitted via things like stories and myths and tales.

Some of these stories are VERY OLD.  And they get told and retold again and again.

There is the saviour.  There is the wounded king.  The original murder.  The hero who dies and is reborn.  The bringer of knowledge.  The three brothers going on to make their fortune.

In these tales are contained important bits of the Human Condition.

Now, do these stories make us or do we make the stories?

Does Las Vegas represent the myths of America writ large for Americans to participate in?

I think that when we aren't aware of these stories, then other stories that are intentionally created by groups and people will take their place...and we will follow them...

CW, I am interested in this discussion, But I do not know what to say. Should I continue as I am or use calculations to improve things? How can I make the calculations that will lead to improvement? 

We are relational reality as is all reality.  As we go through experience we form and change our identity.  Nothing is static.  As it is said we are story tellers and that influences our identity - our present world offers two basic possiblities - nihilism or relationality.  Out of these realities we create stories that reinforce one or the other.  Our culture tends to reinforce nihlism - through such things as liberitarianism.  relationality through participation in group activity.  When learn the latter in family and friendship. It is reinforced by our metastories like religion.

The me that is is formed first in the womb by our dna and then we are born into a family and reborn out of it.  Those traits last but do not determine the me I am.  That is done by reflection using the resources of culture and religion.

 “I am” is a profound phrase if there ever was one.
As we ask the question “what is the “I”?”, we also ask “what is the “am”?”
What is “isness” itself..
Words become quite inadequate when we delve into its nature, and logic becomes a paradox.
for how can "the observer" be viewed objectively?

But however we get our identity, I do think its good to recognize that we do “get it”. That is to say, to recognize that there is a part of us that “is” before the rest.

Thank you all for your input,
And all of you please speak if you have word to say,
for when I ask a question, it is not so much to understand an answer, but to understand the question.

Hi CW:

I think "isness" is an experience, the experience of pure being, of just being without conceptualizing or analyzing.

Then there is no observer and observed, subject and object, question and answer. Then we experience God.