The Nature of My Identity: Am I an Avocado or Artichoke View of Human Nature?

Nowadays, it seems to be a general knowledge for all people that we are humans, a
creature that is very distinctly unique to every creatures on earth, But it seems that humans
knowledge about his humanity and identity is just bounded to their idea that we are human. But
what does it mean to be a human? What is our identity? is it fixed or changing?

I do believe that our identity is an amalgamation of the Avocado and the Artichoke view
of Human nature, It is factual that humans identity are like of the Avocado, everyone has its own
center core or essence, our essence is our soul or spirit. The Greek philosopher Plato believes
that “Our human body, has a soul who is confined in our body” (www.wikipedia. com) and the
soul is the primary reason for our behaviors and actions. He also added that our the human soul
is everlasting, the physical body of a person may die but his soul will be continuing its function
forever, One example of this is the notion of being a christian. we as a christians people seems
to be ordinary in our physical aspects, but what makes us special is our essence, which is to love
and serve god, because of our essence we are living accordingly, In comparison to an avocado,
Its seeds is important because without the seed of an avocado. This will not grow as an avocado.
On the other hand, we can be also compared to an artichoke point of view, but in this case, our
identity is compared only to its outer layer wherein our identity may changes through
experiences . This may be compared with the theory of existentialism, the theory focuses that
people exist without essence, there is nothing who guides them and their actions is based on their
decision and influences of his society. Since the society is changing, a person’s identity do also
changes. In comparison to an artichoke, since it has no seed or essence, the fruit identity is not
constant and changing. (www.allaboutphilosophy.org).

In addition, My belief that our identity is a mixture of the avocado view and the
artichoke view of human nature. It simply means that we humans have a fixed characteristics
ever since, these are the ones we called our innate characteristics and this will never change,
example; our innate passion to love. No one doesn’t have this trait, their essence is to love and
to be love and this will never change what ever happen, but sometimes some of our
characteristics do changes especially when there is something that happen, for example is the
viewpoint of political concepts and systems, before as a child we view politicians as great leaders
but for some as they grew, their perception on this changes. As to the point they witnessed about
the messiness of Politics, They began to change their perception about this.

I greatly believe that the Identity of every human person has its fixed essence or those
traits,values, and characteristics that will never change and also sometimes some of the
characteristics that we obtain from the society changes. Basically, we are like the seeds of the
avocado because our innate characteristics doesn’t change forever and we our like the outer
layer of the artichoke because sometimes some of our characteristics changes because of the
influence of a changing society,

References:

https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/existentialism.htm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul