Personal and not

Sometimes, we differentiate the personal and not personal, and it can be useful and convenient to do so.

But when I look a little closer, I find that boundary too to be only a construct.

I can say that everything related to this human self is personal... any experiences, thoughts, emotions, preferences, actions and so on.

And I can equally well say that none of those are personal.

Thoughts, emotions, preferences, identifications, actions – anything experienced – just happens. They all live their own life, on their own schedule.

And if I look at it through the filter of cause and effect, I find innumerable possible causes for each one. There is always one more, in a chain going back to the beginning of the universe and out to the widest reaches of the universe.

So in both of those ways, there is nothing personal about any of it. It just happens, and each one has infinite (apparent) causes.

This can easily co-exist with the conventional views. I will still take responsibility for my actions and whatever appears connected to this human self. But I can also look a little further, and notice it is all impersonal.

In the headless terminology, I can say that finding myself as capacity for the world, it is all impersonal. And as what I appear as to others, as this human self, it is personal in the everyday sense.

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