The dialectics of me, my self, and I

When I think of describing my self, or when I introduce my self, I tend to start with basic information: my age, my education, my current occupation, perhaps some hobbies. What do these things say about my self though? What is my self? What defines my self?

If my education defines me in some way, does that mean that I was not my self yet, before I finished my education? Or was I a different self? If my hobbies define me in some way, then to what degree is my self defined by mimetic desire? Can external factors define my self? Is my self static? Or is it fleeting? Is there an inner self and an outer self, with one self being more dynamic than the other?

Is there a reason to want to define my self? What does it bring me to define my self? Is there even a self? Can a self exist outside of relations with other living beings? Is my self one, or is it multiple? Is my self at work a different self from the self that comes out with friends? I tend to think that I can be or even am myself more, during the moments when I am more comfortable around certain people, or when I am just by my self. What do I base this thought on? Is my self intrinsically tied with my perceived freedom? Am I more of my self when I am more free? Am I less of my self when I am less free? What makes me less or more free? Do I decide how free I am? When I see others who behave the same way in any situation, does that make them closer to their selves? Or perhaps just less socially aware? Is being socially aware a part of my self?

Again, is there a reason to even attempt to define my self? Does defining my self not just limit my self? Does it matter if I limit my self? I define my self when I am around others who do not know me yet. I define my self through some online profiles. I guess I am making an attempt to define my self now. What does it bring me, to attempt to define my self?

If my self is fleeting, moving, changing, depending on reflections, situations, external factors, and so on: am I even my self? Can I be some thing that is ever changing? Do the static parts of my self define me, or the fleeting parts? Did my previous obsession with the workings of the North Korean state define my self to some degree? Does it still define my self, after moving on from this obsession?

To what degree can and does my use of technology define my self? Am I a different self when I use a different keyboard to express my self? How do I express my self without certain knowledge of what my self is? Is there a need to have certain knowledge of my self to express my self?

What of my smartphone, does it have a say in defining my self? I spend hours upon hours looking for traces of dopamine with the little black mirror that inhabits my pocket. Does that act define me? Do I define my self when I choose to read a book, rather than scroll through my phone? Am I still defining my self while I am scrolling, or is the scrolling defining me? Is it the act of scrolling that is defining me, or the ‘content’ that I am scrolling through?

Am I even able to define my self? Is taking an action that I think will define my self, defining? Or is the defining moment found in the making of the choice to undertake the action that I think will define my self?

After growing more alienated with my phone, I have made the conscious choice and subsequent effort to read more books and scroll less. I wonder if this action brings me back to an older version of my self that read more and scrolled less. Perhaps the insights from the books will form my self into a new self.

What unintended consequences can be found in such an act of trying to redefine my self? Does consistently reading mold me into a more disciplined version of my self? Is discipline something that can define my self? Do my sleeping problems define my self, since they affect my discipline? Are they able to define my self by themselves?

The more I try to grasp my self, the further it seems to drift from me. Perhaps this is because I am trying to grasp my self by intellectualizing and rationalizing my self, while my self is not a rational part of me. But then, what is the rational part of me? Is that to be found in my self? Perhaps there is an emotional self, and a rational self?

Speaking of, is there a distinction between me and my self? What about I? Perhaps there is. Maybe I is the part of my being that is undertaking any type of action, be it physical, emotional, rational, whatever. Then mecould be the part of my being that cannot be grasped, and my self is the part that can be grasped. My self is what I present to others, while me remains as an underlying driver of my self and my I.

I stops when my self is being articulated, even though it is I that is articulating my self. I only exists in action, while my self only exists in inaction. The self is like a picture of me. It does not show me to the fullness of me, but it does show a part of me, a part that is confined to a certain situation and is in a certain state.  As Iand my self are by my definition separate, what unites them? Me.

I as thesis, my self as antithesis, and me as synthesis.