Just look at that face! And those fingers! And his nose!

I agree with Jessica Lee, who says that no one could have found themselves because "Self is a perpetually changing process." Since I figured it out, I have been fascinated by the fact that the human body pretty much destroys and recreates itself every couple of years or so. The person that you were freshman year has been completely replaced by the person you are now, both physically and mentally, since memories are also altered based on time. By this standard, your "self," or who you are, is literally changing with every second, so there is no way of pinning down a moment when you find your "self." Little Luke, though he has special idiosyncratic tendencies and an individual baby-like personality, has not reached a point in his life, nor has anyone, where he can know exactly who he is.

Im feeling what PJ said super hard and I would like say that I think that Lil' Luke has a self. I think it's impossible not to. When I first read this prompt I thought a lot about learning in psychology that everything you are is based off of your memories. Everything in your self is based off of what your self encountered in previous events. Now, because Lil' Luke does not have much to remember nor much possibility for memory, his self is not as grand and recognizable as maybe someone like Siddhartha but this does not mean it is totally absent. Like Morgan and Sheridan discusses, babies can have drastically different personalities even at the same age. I don't think that this is because they have had different experiences (other than what kind of tricked out stroller they have or whether or not their parents buy the good snacks or baby food or whatever) but rather because they react differently to things that are presented to them. Joel brought up the distinction between the self and the soul and I think that the soul is your being, your life force that can be given different perspectives by putting yourself in the corpse of a jackal per say. The self, however is who you are and how you really TRULY HONESTLY react to or feel about something. It is the voice that you have to strain to listen to when your soul is filled with misleading words and unstable thoughts. Babies, unclouded by the pains of respect, lies, and the real world go for what their inner voice tells them to do. Their personalities represent themselves so soon because their inner voice is an unchained wanderer and must first explore before settling.

Mais oui, il a une identité! I really liked what Jessica said, even though she fell to disagreance. I do agree that whatever "self" is in constant fluxuation, but who says it's not in that constant waltz at 3 days old? I'd like to think there are moments or phases in life that allow us to "restart" life. If we fall in love, we can have this new sense of self as a three day old person. If we discover the most flawless baguette known to man, we have a new sense of self as a three day old person.

All people, in my opinion, are born with a self. This self is unique for each person. However, you may ask, what is a self? How do we define a "self?" People's selfes are who they have the power to become that will bring themselves the most happiness (maybe that's why people take selfies, because people are attempting to form their self through the opinions of others). People go through struggles as they attempt to define their self to, well, themselves. For example, Siddhartha says:

"His self had crawled into this priesthood, into this arrogance, into this intellectuality. It sat there tightly and grew, while he thought he was destroying it by fasting and penitence. Now he understood it and realized that the inward voice had been right, that no teacher could have brought him salvation. That was why he had to go into the world, to lose himself in power, women, and money; that was why he had to be a merchant, a dice player, a drinker and a man of property, until the priest and Samana in him were dead." (99-100)

Siddhartha went through many struggles in an attempt to figure his self out; to define his self. He even says he is reborn. This tells us that the self can be found through rebirth or birth; Siddhartha has to re-define his self now. He has always had a self, but it is the journey of life that causes a person to attempt to define their own self. Maybe it can never happen. On a side note, I think the Buddha figured this out and that is the reason he is so happy. I am only hypothesizing, I know nothing of Buddhism and I apologize if I have hurt anyone's beliefs.

Siddhartha’s initial goal in life is “…to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow — to let the Self die” (14). In this quote, Self is likened to desire, dreams, pleasure, and sorrow – feelings that are innate to human beings. Siddhartha is trying to get rid of the Self. “…but he had never really found his Self, because he had wanted to trap it…” (47). Siddhartha doesn’t completely understand his Self because he has never found it. That is why he in unable to succeed in trapping his Self. He states that meditation, fasting, and holding of the breath are only “…a temporary escape from the torment of Self” (17).

I believe Luke Paris Page does indeed have a Self. One might argue that a three day old human being isn’t aware enough to have a Self and understand his own Self. Well, Siddhartha is surely old enough to be able to understand these concepts, right? Yet, even at his advanced age he struggles to come to terms with his Self (as seen above). When he meets and interacts with Kamala, he is no longer an ascetic and indulges in behaviors that go against his values as a Samana. Siddhartha vacillates between trying to contain his Self and allowing it to roam free. This doesn’t change even as Siddhartha ages. Though Luke may not know he has a Self, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t possess a Self. Siddhartha may know he has a Self but he definitely hasn’t come to terms with it. Siddhartha’s story shows that the Self doesn’t magically develop with age. This leads me to the conclusion that we are all born with a Self. Ultimately, being able to control one’s Self is futile.

If we are to use Siddhartha's explanation of self, that being the part of a human that comes from, "Too much knowledge...too many holy verses, too many sacrificial rites, too much mortification of the flesh, too much doing and striving" (99), then I believe that Luke Parris Page would in fact not have a self. Luke, in this picture, is far too young to have clouded his true identity with a facade of superficial goals and actions. That being said, I disagree with Siddhartha's idea for identification of self. In fact, I think that Siddhartha has 'self' completely backwards.

When Siddhartha compares self and the inward voice he tells readers that 'self' is the detrimental internal force of which we consistently fight with. Self is a major component of arrogance; it's almost that "someone is judging me" feeling that causes us to react differently to our environment than is necessarily true for our real personality. I, however, believe that self is the truest essence of a human being. Self is not what Siddhartha escapes before he nearly plunges in the river but what he finds after shedding his layers of skin that have been thickened by falsified goals and a judgmental environment. Siddhartha only finds his self because he is momentarily stuck in a place with no goals, no judgment, and no where to run. At this moment he rids himself of all his impurities (these masks that we disguise our self with) and uncovers his true personality. He can only do so, however, because he is not focused on discovering his true nature, a goal that if ever sought after is impossible to achieve because the fact of desiring and pursuing one's self will never lead to a true understanding of one's self due to the fact that our consciousness knows what we strive to find and can substitute in its own alternate pleasing and arrogant reality instead of the truth.

By this reasoning I believe that we always have a self, yet it is generally hidden behind the mirror that we wear that reflects and conforms from the way that we wish to see ourselves fit in to our environment, thus for the majority of our lives we are just a reflection of what we see noble and important around us. We wear what we want to be. To answer the question now, yes, I believe that Luke Parris Page does have a self, but not Siddhartha's definition of self, my definition of the word. In fact, the short time we spend after birth and before learning and adapting to our environment is for most of us the only portion of our life that we truly display our isolated self as we are without the facades that we learn to develop. Yet most of us will never truly learn this feeling because in our birth we were too young to comprehend our self, and once we gain that power to comprehend and search for our self we only push it further back into the depths of our mental labyrinth.

Self is such a complex and subjective topic that determining its definitions and application have inspired many a journey—including the man of the hour, Siddhartha himself. The complexity of self makes it difficult for me to really answer whether or not Luke Parris Page, your adorable newborn nephew, has a self. Is self as Siddhartha theorizes: the ubiquitous presence in one’s mind that moves one to live? Or, could self be the simple desire to live?

Though I admire Siddhartha’s intellectual definition of self, I feel that its definition is much too narrow to be the true definition. To me, whom or whatsoever expresses the desire to live, survive and thrive, has a self in my eyes. While dearest baby Luke cannot yet begin to understand himself in the way that Siddhartha sees the idea of self, Luke expresses the desire to live. Not that I want to compare this precious gift of a child to my terrier, but I cannot seem to get my baby out of my head. Beau, my Teddy Roosevelt Terrier, cannot engage me in philosophical discussion of the amalgamation of identity or of times eternal and ever present qualities as Siddhartha tackles with his self. I see a self within him, though. I see it when he greets me upon my return from school and I see it when I leave in the morning. His expressions of love and fear and joy and desire in those moments cement my belief in my definition of soul. Luke will, without a doubt, reach the levels of self that Siddhartha theorizes, but I believe that he has an inherent self that is synonymous with this life, with his breath. Just as Siddhartha says, “Nothing was, nothing will be, everything has reality and presence,” (107) I firmly believe everyone or thing with life, reality, presence has the foundational asset of a self. He desires to breathe, he desires to live, he desires with his self—a self that is inherent to his life in every sense.