"I" is the mystery of life. "I" is a miraculous unit of reflective self-consciousness that is aware of its own individuality and separateness from life; and although every "I" is made of the same individuated consciousness of life, each "I", in the words of the Romantic poet John Keats, "possesses a bliss peculiar to each one by individual existence." "I" is who we are. It is our distinct individual core identity. Like snowflakes, we are all different but the same; but how do we become different? Better still, how do we even become a distinct, separate "I"?
Chapter 29: Socrates' Secret