Before I begin trying to express everything that has been circling in my mind for this section, I want to start with a few basics - both to make sure you understand where these thoughts come from and to remind myself, in case I get lost along the way, what exactly I’m trying to do here.
I have no degree, yet I’ve been studying - formally and informally - for about eleven of the last fifteen years. I come from Christianity. For a while, I wanted to be pagan - Slavic to be exact. I feel that it touches something deep within me, something I can’t seem to find in Christianity. In some ways, I think I am pagan. I’m also Christian, but I feel like I’m more than just that, and this makes me feel torn apart. And even without those parts of me, I still feel that I am something. So I want to express everything here, to bring it all together and make it whole. Something in me says there is more to it than just definition of the box that fitts me best. It is a short way. Blind one.
Over time I realized that no religion, at least for me, can truly capture the essence of what it aims to teach. Still, I think. And I am human - just like all of us here, I suppose.
And in the same way that I believe we shouldn’t speak with certainty about things we don’t genuinely understand, I feel almost obliged to share my own thoughts about what I think I am when I think about myself: as a human, as the particular person that exists behind my eyes, in this mind.
That’s why, in this series, I don’t want to use any academic works, sources, or references. I want to strip this entire process down to bare thought - to the mind reflecting on reality without leaning on the scattered pieces of truth others have already shaped into words. I want to see what happens if I look inward first, before looking outward.
I should also mention from the start that I will be using artificial intelligence for editorial purposes. English has never been the language of my thoughts, and I doubt it ever could express everything I want to express. My inner language has always been - and will always be - Polish. Its structure shapes the way I think, and switching to entirely different linguistic patterns feels unnecessary for what I’m trying to do here.
In this project, language is simply a tool: a way to send my thoughts out into the world in a form others can understand. I hope that’s not a problem for anyone.
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I hope at least some of you will find this journey interesting.
And in the worst case, I hope it will help me sort a few things out along the way.