Personality and Its Definition
If the word singularity means one, can that oneness possess personal qualities?
We use the word “personality” in many situations—even when we talk about our pets and their quirky habits—but it’s far more complex than it seems, partly because we frequently confuse it with “character”: the distinctive qualities, traits, and features that make someone or a place unique. In this post, personality should be understood as a unified reality composed of consciously perceived physical, mental, and spiritual components.
More specifically, personality in these words refers to an individual’s volitional ability to express consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting, not solely related to one’s corporeality or intellectual ability, but primarily to the positive or negative value embedded in one’s life. It represents the qualitative aspect of someone who, unlike a stone or a tree, can, at will, reflect the subjective reality (again, positive or negative) of their own existence.
A personality represents the presence, or the volitional aspect, of someone who can, at any given time, demonstrate the intrinsic value rooted in their actual presence. It is a qualitative unit that can consciously unify the different parts (physical, mental, and spiritual) that comprise the reality of their own life. It is similar in many respects to the singularity, or unified reality, we seek to understand when we contemplate the universe, its components, and their origin.
A person may consist of one or many components, but to be considered as such, one must be able to reflect at will on what exists and, therefore, on the truth of one’s own composition, especially the qualities that confer human status. You, for instance, should not be defined by your physical attributes but only by your power to recognize yourself and the world you live in. Without that self-recognition, your physical aspect would be like a song no one hears—potentially real, but never truly alive, never gathered into a single meaningful whole.
The fact that you are present in this world is not attributable to a falsehood of a pre-natal state, but only to the conscious recognition of your actual presence, which constitutes the link to the phenomenon we call “life”: to the past and future temporal dimensions, each of which we individually discover and gradually come to comprehend. Without that inner pulse of being alive—without our own quiet consciousness of time and space—neither you nor I could ever call a stone a “stone” or turn our thoughts upon themselves, like a mirror catching light.
Every time you think about yourself, remember that a stone or a flower cannot be more than what we define them to be. They cannot become anything other than what we describe them to be unless a volitional force or capacity—some intellectual faculty, if you want—enables them to become something other than what they physically demonstrate. In other words, a human personality, like yours, is not only a material form (big or small, black or white, male or female) but primarily the qualitative glue—the actual presence—that holds the parts (material, mental, and spiritual) together as one. And this qualitative glue or reality—thus your personality—is changeless, whether in time or in eternity, while the parts constituting it may change, grow, or disappear.
Possessing a physical body does not necessarily entail possessing a reflective mind—consider, for instance, the stone or the tree mentioned earlier. A reflective mind, such as yours, exhibits a qualitative individuality that distinguishes it from others. Yet this individuality is never wholly detached from the quantitative elements that constitute your physical appearance.
A person may be understood as a collection of quantitative parts—regardless of their physical form, mental state, or qualitative expression—provided that this individuality can, at will, reflect the pre-existing reality or truth that existed before their physical birth. In doing so, they would affirm a positive reality that transcends their material composition.
A person, like you, is not merely a collection of atoms and molecules, but a unified whole that relates both to their physical corporeality and to the volitional characteristics that enable them to recognize themselves—and, in turn, to be recognized by others as distinct, even when those others share the same physical attributes, mental faculties, and qualitative potential. An individual unaware of their own self—their singularity within this vast universe—is unable to act, whether positively or negatively, in a way that allows them to identify themselves as something other than what merely constitutes their corporeal being.
In other words, your personality is not in your hands, feet, or any other part of your body, but solely in the unity (physical, mental, and spiritual) of what you represent to those who know you. The name given to you at birth signifies your identity, but not your personality or the qualitative aspect that holds you. Your name is not the unified whole that reflects your life when you express yourself. Your name, bestowed upon you by your parents, is the name of your individuality, but not the real nature of what you are and will ever become.
The true nature of your identity is indeed related to your physical attributes and intellectual faculties, but you are not any of these attributes or faculties, for your body alone, without you within—the qualifier, the oneness you represent—cannot be you. Matter is real. It is factual, objective, and understandable by whoever wants to understand it, but it cannot, on its own, understand itself without the volitional aspect of someone experiencing it. Without a volitional capacity to explore matter’s constitution, matter cannot qualify itself as an aggregation of energetic particles. Reality without an actual consciousness of it can be anything but the truth.
The definition of personality, and our misinterpretation of it, stem from our understanding of what we think a person is. Even today, we see a person as someone with a physical body, rather than as a unified individuality with a set of behaviours, cognitions, and emotional patterns that evolve from, but are not limited to, biological functions. When we look at a person, we think first of corporeality (physical substance) rather than of unity (eternal essence).
In this day and age, we continue to identify ourselves with an accidental property—the physical aspect of our identity, of which we have no control to start with—instead of the unified essence from which we all come and will eventually return. We don’t realize enough that we are human, not because of our physical attributes but because of the qualitative and unified nature of our identity: our personality.
It is essential to understand that the truth of any fact, including the universe and all of us, had to be possible, or present in potentiality, before these facts, now visible in time and space, could ever be considered true. The qualitative difference among us highlights a distinction in intellectual sensations or emotions related to the perceived phenomenon and our comprehension of it, but not in anything intrinsic to the phenomenon itself.
In your reflection, always remember that a physical form without volition, or a reflective capacity to ponder what the world is or could be, doesn’t have the capacity, beyond the quantitative potential included in its manifestation, to express itself as part of the physical cosmos. You, by contrast, are a qualitative unit that consciously, I repeat, consciously holds the different parts that form your reality, rather than being one or many parts that you consciously perceive.
Conclusion
The persistent confusion surrounding our definition of personality stems from a fundamental misconception: we prioritize our physical substance over our qualitative essence. We don’t realize that the true identity of a personality lies not in a matching genetic blueprint, a physical body, or any accidental trait that may represent someone, but in the unique willpower and unifying essence that drives one’s actions. As exemplified by the universe we see, our varied reactions to the same reality reflect not a difference in the object itself but the unique mental and emotional perspectives of the perceiver.
In this modern era, we must shift our focus from the physical vessel in which we live our lives to the qualitative unity that constitutes us, understanding that we are defined not by what we physically are, but by the intentional essence of who we choose to be and become.
A glimpse ahead:
Oh, look at us—so incredibly advanced in our understanding! We’ve gone from trembling at the Gods’ perspective to rolling our eyes at them. Now, in our super-enlightened era, we have neatly sorted God into two boxes: nonexistent or a hilarious cartoon grandpa with a flowing white beard, hovering on a cloud and pointing at us like we’re troublesome ants. Fear God? No, not anymore. That’s for superstitious fools. We’re way too clever for that. So, we pooh-pooh the whole deity thing and declare that science—just by snipping a few branches off the cosmic forest—is all we’ll ever need to explain life, the universe, and everything. How cute and brilliant is that?
So, before the next post, here’s a question: Is the centre of reality just some nonsense rattling around in a pretentious philosopher’s skull? Or is it as real as the universe we are literally looking at right now?