The intuition of the I

In Philosophy, a lot of thoughts have been produced about the human 'I'. But we can actually never say anything true about it, if we never form our thoughts from the perception of our own I. How can I ever know anything about this peculiar little point that is also the most important one in my life, if I never try to find it in its real being?

We could say that it is only an imaginative thing, that it doesn't really exist; or we could say that it is the perception of our body; that it is the self or maybe even the true self. All these words are not apt to explain this one letter word: I

Let us try a little exercise. If I ask myself to perceive myself as I, immediately, without thinking about it, I certainly experience myself as a living body, living on my own, independent from other bodies. As a single body I am lonely, all on my own.

But I can also try to feel myself as an I, feel myself. It is not a bodily feeling , but a true feeling, like my other feelings of joy and sadness. All these feelings I experience as belonging to me. I am the one who is having these feelings. In my feelings, in feeling myself as an I, I also am lonely, all on my own. My joy is not easily explained to my friends. I can talk about it, but they are not likely to feel the full quality of my joy – or my sadness.

In my thoughts I also experience myself. I am the centre of my thoughts, they originate somewhere in me. They are explicable more easily to my friends, but never completely. I still am alone there, in my thoughts. But the loneliness is already a little bit less complete, because by talking I can share my thoughts, much more clearly than I can share my feelings. Even there, I can only share my feelings by sharing my thoughts about them.

So, did I find the I now? No, I found the body, the feelings and the thoughts that are related to the I. But the I itself stays hidden behind these three fields of experience.

However, there is a fourth possible way to find the I. This is the case, when I not only have thoughts, but when I think them actively. I don't let my thoughts come and go now, but I unfold them with will, they evolve from the I itself, because the I wants to evolve them. I want to evolve them. My thoughts now don't come by accident, the I itself becomes thought, because I think exactly what I want to think - nothing more, nothing less.

Let me think about a triangle. What exactly is a triangle? I think three sides, three lines that form a closed figure. I can think that two of these lines can never form an angle of 180�, because then it can't be a triangle. None of the three angles can be 180. I can also think that a triangle is formed by the lines through three points that don't lie on a straight line.
Here we have a situation in which the I is partly evolving the thoughts, partly receiving them through thinking. As far as I think myself, the I is active and would be able to perceive itself, were it not that it forgets itself by vanishing in the content of the thoughts.
I would find my I in its full pureness if I could find my activity of thinking, instead of the contents of my thoughts.

So let us try it over again. I know now, what can be thought about a triangle, I can think it again with the full willpower of my I. I metamorphose myself in the thoughts, and I perceive this metamorphosis, not the thoughts. I perceive the activity of my I. I perceive my I.
This is the intuition of the I. In this, I am I in the most pure way. I am not lonely anymnore, I found the other being in its fullness: teh being of the triangle.


Euler diagram of all possible triangles (Wikipedia)The intuition of the I by Mieke Mosmuller