The theory of thought.

Once I believed that Descartes held the quintessential bit of everyday truth in his Cogito Ergo Sum approach. Are we really what we are through our thoughts? Can our intellectual thought processes define our very state of being?
In short, can we redefine ourselves through imagining otherwise? I endeavoured to set myself in what I believed to be an alternate path of what I was comfortable being all along. I started life being an introvert, living my life off the television and video games. In fact, I never wanted to be any different, I always liked to think alone, eat alone (or with my books) and generally continued to slaughter my aliens in the relative comfort of my crib. I never desired the company of my peers, never needed to talk to my parents (and they me) for any reason whatsoever and generally preferred to investigate my doubts rather than confront my teachers. I could survive in my Secondary school with just 1 or 2 friends which I maintained from primary school to eliminate the need to saturate my friend pool.

Life was proceeding according to my laws and within parameters set by me as most of the variables could *only* be changed by me. It was comfortable, it was predictable and frankly, I could've sworn it was perfect.

I decided to change my entire perspective of life after reading a little deeper into the epistemology of Rene Descartes' Cogito Ergo Sum. It was novel, it was interesting and it presented a social experiment with one subject with which all parameters can be controlled by me... Since *I* am the only subject. I began by weaning myself off the lesser evil (TV) and devoting more time to starting to do some push ups and minor weights. I started paying attention to conversations, started listening to popular media like the radio and started using my existing friends to insert myself into society. I shed my introvert image and went into every single activity worth mentioning to gain acceptance into the mainstream of society.

My transition took approximately 4 years. I emerged a self-perceived extrovert, sporty to the limit of any spatial games concerning spherical objects and eager to make friends (albeit a lag time for recon) and try as i might I couldnt shake off my computer game obsession but at least I gained 15 kilos of body mass and acquired a tan. There were even fundamental shifts in what I oringinally perceived was "me". It exists and maintains itself by overlapping onto my persona, it was *not* a change, it was an overlay. I picked up rollerblading, kayaking, swimming and even did some jogging but I tend to prefer to do these my myself for some reason. The only other activity I could do socially was cycling. But everything I did existed on top of my prior traits.

Sometimes, when you define the very thing that is you, it escapes the parameters of that same definition as you try to fit your own sense of self within it. The fit becomes lesser than the sum of its parts, it escapes the state of its own purpose of definition. People do not like being defined, it might not even be a conscious decision to reject the fit but by escaping a definition, do we truely find ourselves and actually increase our experience relative to what we had before.

This is the conclusion i reached, adolescents hate being labelled, it dampens their self perceived uniqueness of identity. They might not want to be different but when aggressively stereotyped, they will function as a change. It might not be an independent change but this process of redefinition is what makes the chaotic mix of sometimes conflicting adolescent behaviour so interesting to behold.

Thus this is how i attempt to define my thought processes for this period. I was the change, i existed as the change. But the change does not have what I was fundamentally and it would never hold no matter how hard I try to maintain it. The change is a facade which has none of my basic traits. However, by incorporating the change into what I was before, I believe I can make improvements that can be incorporated into me as opposed to an image which I would rather show society.

By imagining theory and substantiating it with empirical evidence, we are giving what can be described as the premise of our basic hyperthesis. The exact opposite of this would be the existence of faith and its much associated counterpart, religion. Religion is a major facet in our society with its own theory of existence which is as implicit as its lack of definitive evidence of its own being. By drawing conclusions from everyday incidents based on the supposed workings of an omniscient and omnipotent being, the general clergy is able to give relative comfort to the populace and even solve some of its social problems. However, religion based on its own workings can be faulted for many things, glaringly so is that its own conclusions sometimes defy actual going ons. This is alleviated by clouding this being in more mystery by allegedly stating that its purpose and thoughts are above us and all conclusions we can draw are just conjecture to its more quintessential plan.

There is nothing cerebral in that, in fact, often we take for granted this evolution of our acceptance to religion which does evolve with us to suit the changing mindset of society and its accepted norms. By doing so, it stays current and exists. This is a good example of a business concept marketing essentially the same product, by changing the way the product is presented and the activites surrounding it, it maintains its own acceptance to the masses. Since its own clergymen stem from these same individuals, their own conceptualization of his/her own self and the accepted norms for interaction with other members of the population is integrated into religion itself. This synthesis is almost obvious when comparing Islam in undeveloped countries to Islamic practices in the more developed ones. Lifestyle satisfaction is greatly linked to the clergymen who tend to be more benevolent and intellectual to suit their flock or instigative and millitant to give a sense of purpose to the downtrodden who tend to require leadership to that effect.