Who am I? is an age-old question with no clear answer. Keep it that there are multiple selves competing for attention in any given situation. ‘I’ is first of all a thinking-concept, a thought. Whether there is an objective I has not yet been demonstrated. ‘I’ is nothing more than an interpretation. I is a weird mix of algorithmic responses in different states of security in different environments. An endless number of possibilities.
But all those possible responses would leave me at the mercy of the chaos around me. That would be unsustainable and not very efficient. So my auto-biographical and my procedural memory give things a little hold, from a historical perspective. Autobiographical memory is a subjective historiography of my BodyMind. My procedural memory automates how tasks are done. To those that, having learned that something works, repeat themselves for my convenience, often automatically without the intervention of thought. Examples include biking and driving but also brushing teeth and going to the office. And, of course, keeping me safe.
I regulate myself by old behavior. That once worked to take most of the tension off. So that’s the addiction trap. System habit, easier away than new behavior. Feels familiar even though it no longer works optimally in the adult I am now.
I am the perception of my state of security. By state, the content and focus of emotions and the intensity of those emotions vary.
What works is reinforced.
