Encountering (the) I

The encounter with reality begets the I, the I exists only as the synthesis of that which is not I. Freud describes the first tragedy as the clash of the pleasure principle with the reality principle, the conception of the self is from tragedy. The accuracy of the wider Freudian framework is irrelevant to the subject of discussion. What is relevant here is only that there is no meaningful conception of the I without it being understood as the negation of that which it is not, and what it is not is what precedes it and what succeeds it, this is the nature of the self that is subject.

This I, the self, the first subject is inevitably annihilated as consequence of the apperception of its own truth. It is in this assimilation of what the self is with what it thinks itself to be that is both the end of the I and the beginning of a greater self. The self which has encountered itself no longer is capable of being the self that did the encountering but is a new self, the encountered self, evolution.

I return again to Freudian language, for its convenience here. — I hold that any sufficiently developed metapsychological framework will express the same as its ‘essence’. The source of morality, of anxiety, grief, and all else that polices the ego, is the superego, the superego exists only as the mirror of the id, and it is this tension between the superego and the id that presents itself as the conscious self, the ego, I. The tension is irresolvable, but the I attempts reconciliation with the superego, the self attempts a movement towards its ideal. This attempt to be what it is not and can never be results in a second tragedy. It cannot be doubted that such an impossible task will result in disappointment, when it fails to realize, which it always will, it collapses into itself, pushed down further by the superego, by reality. All such attempts are fruitless, what follows is the Nietzschian catastrophe.

There exists a singular escape, release. There is only one way to achieve catharsis, ending the self, this arrogant, deluded phenomenon must be put to an end, not through a harmony of its parts, for such harmony as we have already discussed is impossible, but through unity within itself. The encountered self is both the end of the former I and the opportunity for an evolved I, one that is not a unity of its parts, but is instead the unity itself from which the parts emerged, the whole.

To be free can only be meaningfully understood as no longer seeking liberation, no person who is free would seek freedom, for this search then would become itself the restricting structure. To achieve freedom then, one must give up their search for it.

Prerequisites to moral high ground is the collapse of the notion of a moral high ground, so long as one holds an awareness (a deluded one at that) of their superiority, one cannot be so. To let go of this seeking is impossible through a will for it, it is achieved only through the movement of the I along the stages following which it births itself anew as the freed self, the stages it must go through revolve around the encounter with itself. The ultimate act then is not a willed act, but a realized act, realized through tragedy.