What makes me be ME?

 

There are many ways to look at self. 

Are we our physical body/being? Are we our thoughts, our actions or our conscience?

I believe we are a combination of both the tangible and the non tangible.  We are never quite only one or the other. A body without actions, thought or conscience is barely a complete person and that works vice versa too. It may be a physical being but not a human person. We are differentiated from animals by having intelligence to inquire/think about the truth of our existence.

 

It has often been reported, many people that have had heart transplants have been known to say that since the transplant they don't feel like themselves. They have new likes, dislikes and find themselves drawn to new experiences and interests that they've never had previously.  This lends to my belief stated above.

 

 

We go through life outwardly appearing the way we do, and we experience life through that façade, people treat us very much by the way we look.  Furthermore, those experiences affect and form our ways of thinking. Therefore, if our façade where to be different then our experience and thought process would differ.

I would therefore summarize that what makes me be me is the sum of my physical being and the experiences I have had in life up until now.  They have led me to think the way I think and act the way I act forming the person that is perceived as me.

This me will keep evolving and changing, the me of today will not be the me of the future but it will be the me of that time and place that was formed of my physical being, my experiences and the thoughts and actions that resulted of those.  We are a product of our past.