Thank you to everyone for replying.......

I do not know if I have become more confused or more enlightened or a bit of both, and subscribing to the idea that one state cannot exist in part without the other, I am both confused and enlightened I'd say.....

I get what everyone is saying, but I have to be honest and say that what Byz said strikes a very deep chord with me. I understand what Wingin It and Perna are saying intellectually, but I do not really "get it", for I have tried those approaches in many different ways over my life. They sustained me for a period of time, but were transient in how much contentment with self they actually brought me.

I know that the answers only ever lie within (That is my taoist speaking and it is Taoism that has probably stopped me from going mad).

I also know that there is no definitive answer. I also know that my own brand of idealist and radical philosophy can inherently lead me to a deep sense of futility at times, but conversely, it also explains things in ways that nothing else can.

Byz touched on something and it is not exactly what he said......about free will and "other-worldly"......I agree.

In order to know oneself, I think takes an amount of FAITH on the part of the individual and it is so unconscious that they do not even know that it exists. Faith is not just about deities, faith is about believing in something that you cannot see, feel or measure, but you you know fundamentally that it exists for you.

I do not lack faith necessarily, but I fight with it, for it is too dynamic for me to grasp. I often look upon faith with a great amount of suspicion. I do not trust that faith will intrinsically explain what I am, for even though I know that I am human, I have very little faith in the human race, ergo I have very little faith in my own humanity.

I always used to tell my parents that I wished I was a robot. I am sure my parents thought it was just the ravings of a gentle and caring, but completely eccentric child, but I still wish I was a robot. I remember my father, who is a science fiction nut, introducing me to Star Trek at a young age and I would talk about Spock endlessly. I always found it terribly sad that he was part of a group that loved him for what he was, and they helped him to navigate the painful journey through the human side of him, and I wondered why no-one at school embraced the idea of logic (as immature as it might have been at that age. Probably more of a "black and white" manifestation) and helped me through my human side. Gosh, how deluded I was! But I thank my father for introducing me to Spock back then, for I felt a certain kinship with his character more than any one irl.

Anyway, I am raving on......thoughts just flow and lack gravity......I am enjoying the gentle rain and the ebb and flow of nature......

I am in it, but not of it......

Michah