The full meaning of “I” is what is gone towards by every self: it can be said, by every thing. There is an assertive side to “I,” and there is a hiding side. In listening to “I,” we can hear a loud drumbeat; also a shuffle into a cavern.

“I” can be a word of kindness and a word of coldness.

There is no “I” without an awareness by a thing of what it is, and of its going towards things and away from them. When we talk of a self, we should see that the “I” form of the self is awareness: and awareness pertains to knowledge. Certain selves are given to accenting the self in self-awareness, rather than the awareness in self-awareness.

It is clear that there could be no “I,” or self-awareness, without an awareness of other things first. I have not yet heard of a baby which says “I” first. The saying of “I” is approached by, has as its preliminaries, the saying of other things. The “I” phase of existence belongs to knowledge.

A person who says “I,” knows that he is. This knowledge is not opposingly different from the knowledge of anything else. A person who’s dead doesn’t know that he exists: if he were drowned or hit by a cannon ball or definitely affected by dynamite—and he knew that he existed, he wouldn’t be dead. His being alive would depend on his being able to say or feel he was alive; for no person ever said or felt he was alive, who wasn’t; no matter what others, whoever they were, might say.

Biology seems to go towards a thing’s being able to call itself “I.” So far, this is the greatest accomplishment of a thing. Everything in the world has cooperated for this one specific accomplishment.