What is the self? Most of us are too busy chasing money, hoping to have a better 'status', a better 'identity'. Through this process, we tend to forget our 'authentic self'. Kent Thune, a financial blogger I follow, talked about this in his blog here. He talked about rediscovering ourselves by doing the direct opposite, which is: simplifying. Instead of searching for new things to adapt, learn and become, we should find things to remove and simplify. Instead of working hard to increase our income, we should think of reducing our expenses. He said one can only find themselves by removing things and that removal is the foundation of simplicity. Quite an interesting concept but strikingly different from my worldview. I am veered more towards John Locke's tabula rasa(clean slate) view which argues that all of us are born with a mind identical to a blank slate, on which experiences ......