The self as abstract

The self does not exist, it is not a tangible concept, and it is nothing more than an abstract machine created by western metaphysicians. The self is nothing more than a group of connections between machines of infinite difference. While people may have bodies, it would be quite reductionist to say that the body or mind is the self. Life is composed of desiring machines, partial objects which connect with one another. The eye which connects with a hand, a mouth, an ear, each of these connections produces something. What is produced is life, sound, language, emotion, the body. Everything is constantly in flux, a person is much like a river, although it appears the same, it is always different and always changing.
Rilke is correct in his assumptions that the face is a mask and that the body is merely a costume, however he engages in his observation from the wrong starting point. Much like a scientist needing a microscope to understand what an organism is made up with, which examining the so called self, it is imperative to examine not only the body, but the pre-human, as well as the virtual (e.g. thoughts, emotions). It would be incorrect to assume that there are such things as dualisms, especially between the mind and body. In order to understand the self one must embrace the paradox that everything is interconnected, yet at the same time it is infinitely different. There is no such thing as a universal body, or mind, although there may be similarities which are visible to the eye, or in their function, they are never going to be the same.

The Shadows Called Life.

For many years of my life I lived much like the prisoners in Plato’s cave, perceiving the shadows which dance off the wall to be the universal truth of what reality is. Growing up in a small town in conservative Oklahoma, I was constantly spoon fed information such as the belief in god, support for American jingoism, or that Columbus discovered America. Then as I got older I began to discover that the information that I was receiving from the so called enlightened people, was really serving as a blinder, preventing me from ever truly experiencing the beauty of the world. It was at that moment when my chains were snapped and I stepped outside to see the sunlight outside of the cave.
As I stepped out I embarked on a strange and wonderful journey. With Deleuze and Guattari I made myself into a body without organs, saw the connection between the wasp and the orchid, and loved life like the cat and the baboon. I climbed upon icy mountain tops, surrounded myself with goblins, and danced with the gods with Nietzsche. Ward Churchill taught me that my native heritage should be first priority, because I was standing on blood soaked land and that I am privileged to be attending a university which teaches from an epistemologically flawed viewpoint. After acquiring the knowledge I attempted to come back and let the others know what I had seen and done.
Like Plato’s prisoner and Zarathustra I announced to the people around me what I had learned on my Journey, only to be laughed at, and met with extreme violence. My parents scoffed calling me an idiot for my tattoo’s representing my stolen heritage. The religious right responded angrily at the pronouncement that God was dead, and that it was all of us who have killed them. They did not understand, nor did they care, that this did not mean that the pronouncement would only allow for a pure form of Christianity based upon the teachings of Christ, as opposed to the absurd dogma which the church abides by. It was then that I learned that Deleuze was right; the masses do desire their own repression.
I do not believe in truth, the world is not static; it is in flux and in a state of constant becoming. The moment that God died, everything became equally valuable or valueless (who really knows, or cares) there is no single interpretation which is the universal. There is no longer a transcendent to regulate and dictate how the world works or functions. Since I believe that I am in flux I refuse to regulate myself to a meaningless abstract label, and say that this is what I am. For now I am a rhizome, uprooting the verb “to be.”