“The world is… the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself. ” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
In the philosophy of phenomenology, the self is more than a soul inside a body of flesh and bone. It is a field of energy projecting out into the world, and impossible to remove from it. Before our hand even begins to reach out for something, our conciousness has already grabbed hold of it. The body merely follows our intent, and confirms our assumption. This projection is constant, emitting in all directions even when our focus is narrow. Our understanding of the world is based entirely in how we relate to the things around us. In that process, the things around us transform, and become integrated into our being.
We are not defined by the ways we can separate ourselves from the world, but by how we can place ourselves within it.
