Being, Personality and the Self

It can be helpful for those trying to make sense of the mind to recognise that these three concepts — being, self, and personality — are quite distinct and different things. Once you have some grasp of these concepts this will help you focus on what is important whilst dismissing the unnecessary.

We can recognise ‘being’ as the initial or uncontaminated experience, similar to a baby who, at this stage, is free from any learning or conditioning. Awareness at this stage is relatively pure, without recognition of any particular object nor any concept of time.

Personality is nothing more than our conditioning. If we are fortunate and blessed with good role models and a stable upbringing, our personality tends to be balanced. If we suffer lasting psychological trauma this shapes our personality — we might become cautious, even paranoid and untrusting with certain people or scenarios. If our role models struggled with their personality (through their own trauma), we will inherit their coping behaviours, which are often suboptimal and might cause ongoing issues. It is common to identify with one’s personality, which can complicate any resolution of problematic reactions or responses.

The self arises last, usually around the ages 4 to 7, once our understanding has developed to appreciate the concept of time. It arises merely as a consequence of language. Once we learn to identify sensory, and later mental objects (thoughts), the process of objectification creates a necessary subjective viewpoint. This is a little complicated so I will elaborate.

As we develop our language skills we strengthen the habit of labelling experience. If we recognise something — say, a horse — in this process of objectifying this blur of colour, noise, smell and maybe even touch, we label it as ‘horse’. Prior to learning to do this, we simply experience the raw sense data. However, once we have learned to spot a horse, as soon as we can clearly sense it again, we will see “a horse.”

With increased learning we habitually learn to identify, and subconsciously label, any and every sensory and mental object that presents itself to our awareness. This creates an increasing sense of subjectivity, which we call ‘the self’. Although this sense of subjectivity is entirely dependent on the process of objectification, in truth, it arises only briefly with each episode of sensory or mental objectification.

It takes time to appreciate that our feeling of self is simply a consequence of language — initially we tend to reject the idea that ‘self’ is an illusion. Yet, we can reflect that it arises as a concept after the acquisition of language, so it is, at best, a mere concept.

Understanding these distinctions can be deeply liberating. When we realise our personality isn’t our essence and our self is more fluid than we thought, we gain freedom to respond more skilfully to challenges, let go of limiting self-judgments, and access more of our natural wisdom and clarity. The journey of self-discovery isn’t about reaching a destination but about bringing more awareness and compassion to your experience.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
— Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind