The "self"

The idea of the “self” is complex and mysterious and can provoke long periods of rumination that ultimately render no significant distinctions or answers.

                Having said that, I’m going to discuss it anyway.

Does the “self” exist? Do we have independent and original thoughts? Or is everything we desire and want just a product of where we were raised and how we were taught? If I was born in another country with different parents would I be the same? This is simply and unanswerable question. There is no way for me to know the answer to this question because I cannot test it. I would like to believe that I would still value the same things if I was raised in a different environment, but that may not be true. I could be a completely different person. Maybe all people are the same at first, only to have their personal experiences mold them into who they become. Maybe everything we believe and value is just a result of what we hear and see, maybe we can’t develop our own beliefs or even our own morals. Who tells us what is right and what is wrong? If someone does something that we perceive to be wrong but they perceive to be right, then how can my word be taken as more than another? The development of the idea of the self  has been around since the beginning of humanity so some ideas must be original, right? Or are we all just rehashes of things already said? We try to convince ourselves that were special but in reality all of our ideas come from somewhere else. Everything we believe has been said before; but that doesn't mean that they were taught to us. We can come to similar conclusions through very dissimilar paths. I like to believe that each of us is unique in our own way; the problem is that many people have lost their ideas of the “self”. Too many people have fallen into conformity without giving it any personal thought. Too many people believe things simply because that’s what they've been told, not because they have evidence through their own experiences.