Alan, thanks for starting a great thread (and all others for posting).

Funnily, I have been thinking about the same thing recently and have been playing around with the ideas of the “I” and the “me.” The “I” being who I am in the deepest sense of the self: that which is unchanging; the “me” being that sense of self that changes with passing attachments.

If that makes sense, then kilt wearing is very much an attachment. Five years ago I did not wear kilts, today I do. In five years time, who knows? If kilt wearing (or any other attachment) is taken as defining of the “I,” we head for trouble. If kilts are taken away, or we cannot afford the next one, or our significant other bans them (heaven forbid!) then our sense of self is shaken at the least.

In the other posts, folk say generally “I am . . .” an activity (this is what I do, and what I do shapes who I am) or “I am . . .” a virtue (this is what I am like, and what I am like defines me). I suspect that even activities and virtues belong to passing attachments. Today I am angry, tomorrow I am happy, next Tuesday I am more loving. Yet, none of that is “I,” for “I” can look at “me” when I am more loving or sad. Thirty years ago I was a bank clerk, twenty years ago I was a minister, today I am a philosophy professor. Yet, even those relate to the “me” and “I” look on them with interest. They pass too. Kilt wearing, in this sense, cannot define the self.

Cheers!