Yes, something.

I don't know how many other people this affects, but I believe the majority of my sheer annoyance with life can be traced to forced speculation. One of my favorite things to do is read about something that interests me. If I want to know about Vietnamese, for instance, I can read a book about it and then move on. The book will answer my questions. In most cases, books offer finality.

But there are instances for which books can not offer finality. What happened before the big bang? I can't get that question answered because no one knows. Like everyone else, I have no choice but to speculate. It's not the question that matters; it's the fact that there is a loose end.

A complex question that I can't answer is why do I try to understand myself? One would figure that the self, being the self, would have no questions about oneself. This makes me suspect, that since one can question oneself, there is more than just the self. I don't know what that 'more' is.

Clearly the self would want to know about itself more than anything else because it is intimately concerned with itself.

As for what else there is other than the self...well, there is this whole universe thing filled with people, animals, mp3 players, and rocks.

This reminds me of a bad Evangelion script.

Or any of the filler episodes.

That's a bit presumptious...I think some 'selves' would be happy to live a 'non concerned w/self' existence.

I think Jodo's thought is interesting though...What is this 'more', and conceptually, can it be narrowed done in scope?

I should've stated: Since you can question yourself, what is the difference between the two? It seems very strange to me that the self would not immediately understand itself, since that's what it is. This leads to another question: is it more difficult to understand yourself or another self? I would argue that it is easier to understand another self (person). In fact, you can probably do a better job of predicting what other people will do, rather than what you will do. Since the quality of prediction can be associated with oneself, this is more evidence in favor of my idea that you and yourself are dissimiliar.

  As for the universe, it is everything that exists. This means that I exist in the universe and am just as valid as everything else. There is no 'other' about it. We're all the same age since nothing has been introduced into our universe. Everything is made of the material that was here at the beginning.

   EDIT:

   It appears that the totality of the human race can be regarded as having a quality they regard as 'me' or 'I'. Something works at a higher level than this concept of 'I' and we all share it. Whatever it is, it's made out of the material that existed at the beginning (not talking about atoms - those developed fairly late in the life of the universe). This is very interesting. If we could reverse engineer the universe, we could create others. We could also track each atom and see what we were part of, previously. I could be made from hundreds of millions of humans. Or insects. Or jellyfish. Or any combination of those mixed with sewage, salt, and dinosaur droppings. The tracing would get more interesting when taken back before the era of atoms. It would give us a 'combination'. If we used the same combination of materials and let it go, what would the atoms that eventually form do? Would I exist again? Am I inevitable or merely a product of chance? It would be interesting to get a verification.

Wow, what a topic to appear on a game music website!

If it's tips you're after, then one suggestion I'd have would be to look up books on psychology and philosophy, especially since you mentioned you're opened to the knowledge enclosed within those objects. Sections on personality and perception should be quite revealing, along many more. However, you might not be able to find every answers you're looking for, which is a proof of our limits (as humans). Understanding the inner self is already something hard to accomplish, and mixing in the universe and its history just push it over the top. Are you trying to torture yourself or what? Falling short on knowledge shouldn't be taken as a deception though, but rather as a motivation to push research forward and try to find out more about them, even if it's very hard to do.

Did you go under somekind of an "awakening" or has these subjects troubled you for long? Some other tips would be to be careful not to fall for "false" answers on your learning quest (i.e. sects, non-scientific theories on scientific subjects, etc.). Don't oversimplify things to make them easier to get. Don't rush your search either; it might take quite some time to be satisfied, if you are ever to get enough in your life time. As long as you can stand it without becoming crazy, don't give up. Avoid becoming bitter; use that energy positively instead. Never stop questioning yourself and your actions, especially when you feel there's something missing, or even when it seems you've reached your destination. Also, while STC is a community made of real and good people, it might not be the best place in the long run to get what you're currently after, so be sure to explore other avenues as well.

Finally, I'm curious about what you're doing in life, as in what job or field (if it's not too personal of me asking)? If it's not related to any kind of science, and you come to the point one day that you're getting paralyzed by these questions and don't know what to do, I'd suggest you to see if it might not help you feel better contributing to making light on any of parts of that huge lack of knowledge that plagues us. There's definitely more than "this", and it's remarkable you've realized it.

Good luck!

You must be new here.

My interests are too diverse to settle down in any one category. If I pick something and ignore other topics, then I'll become frustrated. The job I have, the place I go to acquire money, deeply annoys me since I have to deal with humans. It's at a catering company/restaurant and since I'm in charge, I get alone time, but not enough. It's bad enough just dealing with myself - imagine trying to get other people to do what they're supposed to do. It's a vast waste of time, since humans are not very compliant. I can understand why some people in charge might favor totalitarianism, since humans are so damned annoying. People like myself should be removed from jobs that require interaction with others. Because of this realization, I need to get any type of job where the human interaction is minimized. Only people that enjoy being around non-compliant humans should be given positions of authority.

  I need a job where I control information, not people. But it's not as easy as quitting my job and snatching up a new one. My job is of the type that requires no education, yet pays enough to allow one to buy property, own a car, and get by without too many problems. The 'information only' type of job I need requires a college degree of some sort. Since I can't be comfortable in any one category, I never did get a college degree but took more than 130 credit hours. I could care less about a degree because I only care about learning what I want to learn. If the college doesn't offer it, then I will study it on my own and give it more effort than someone trying to maintain a 4.0 gpa. I'm not money motivated. That's the problem. Most people go to college in order to get a high paying job. College, for me, was like a maggot finding a carcass. It's feeding time. Except the maggot doesn't have to pay.

  A significant problem with the majority of humans on this planet is that they mistake education for intelligence. Since employers fall within the majority of humans, they are guilty of this as well. If someone is educated, then they are very compliant. They did all the bullshit required of them in college. The employers are delighted to get college graduates, for those very reasons. It doesn't matter if the college graduate knows anything. Some people have more knowledge than some college graduates, but are not compliant, like myself. If I don't like something in a college course, then I will not do it. This is why I could never break a 3.0 gpa in high school or college. I absolutely refuse to engage in activities that I consider stupid or annoying, even if it means getting an 'F'. I honestly don't give a shit. Once, on a research paper, I attached a full sheet of paper at the end explaining how stupid citations are, since, in order to use them effectively, one would need to cite each instance of each letter, since the letters are not the inventions of the author in question. My teacher was not amused and gave me a 'C'. But still, I had to let the guy know that he should at least sit back and think about the stuff he orders us to do and not expect us to act so mindlessly.

  I'll probably never be happy, but this is how I live. Life is simply annoying. I've discovered that reading, sleeping, music listening, watching movies, and exercise are activities that are almost devoid of anything disturbing. So, it's those moments I can look forward to. I'm sure we're all the same in that respect. We are mostly annoyed and look forward to those moments when we are not annoyed. I'm actually, probably, verily, identical to you.

My troublings started in grade school. Probably one of my earliest memories of realizing that other humans barely think was when some students made fun of me for coloring dinosaurs yellow. They were laughing because dinosaurs are supposed to be green. What I couldn't make them understand is that no one has ever seen a dinosaur.

   Church caused problems and not only with my peers. Since adults and children alike can catch religion, this simultaneously distanced me from both. I couldn't make anyone understand that Christianity might be incorrect.

   I have found few friends and spend more time with books. This has caused me to be aware of many problems that I otherwise would not know about. Most people have problems with people, since they spend so much time socializing. But, you will find, if you spend your time with books, you will have problems with ideas. They will consume you.

   So, I have not been 'awakened'. It's been an ongoing acquisition of information. Every now and then I get the urge to complain and let out some frustration.

Jodo, a lot of what you say does make sense. I'm not exactly a people person myself - I have a hard time making friends, quite reluctant in social situations and try to avoid conflict whenever possible. I'm not too fond of little children either, though that has more to do with how some *parents* supposedly *rise* their kids anymore these days.

Still, if I have learned anything over the years, withdrawing oneself from social situations as much as humanly possible to avoid conflict, pain or anything else isn't a solution. I may not be a people person but I hate being alone even more - it's quite ironic. I'm not trying to sound like a self help seminar or start a pity party here but these are the kinds of things you can't learn in school or from a diploma and are undoubtly more important than the metric system.

Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is don't drive yourself crazy in your quest for answers because you'll probably find more questions looking for that answer. It's hard enough for a person to understand themselves let alone others; if one is lucky enough they may come to understand themselves before there time on this planet is up, "luck" being the key word here.

Perception plays a role in this confusion.  Everyone cannot arrive at one singular truth collectively regarding everything that exists, since each human will still perceive that singularity differently, making multiple truths in turn as it gets internalized.   

Since we can't remove ourselves from the equasion, that limits us.  We can't measure things beyond our scope, as those loose ends you refer to extend to a farther destination than we can reach.

Switching topics, the relation of Input and Output might be something which would keep you from going crazy.  As you have already experienced, the more knowledge you gain, the more you find out that you STILL know practically nothing, even after increasing that knowledge 10-fold since when you started.   

Even with a steady stream of Input we remain unquenched yet risk a rupture if we do nothing to release it.  Having an Output is somehow essential to our continuation.  I'd say you need a creative output where you can produce something with all the input you've been soaking up. 

You've dabbled in writing Short Stories and such in the past, so you've somewhat realized this already.  Keep it up!  Or expand it or branch into other arts as need be.  Doesn't have to be for anyone else's benefit but your own, but any form of artistic expression/release should help to maintain or extend your balance for the long run.

There were filler episodes?

...

"How can a man know that what he knows is really so?"

Bonus points if you know where that quote came from.

...

Lately, I've been coming up with a lot of questions about myself, too. For example, how do I know that my parents are in fact my real, biological parents? Even a DNA test could turn out to be flawed and provide inaccurate results, an opposite of the truth.

The fact is, we all live with limited knowledge, and most of the time believing only what we want to believe and somehow, we get through life.

...

Other than that, as far as the self questioning the self, I think it's just our factory-installed moral compasses keeping us from being lead astray.

I found your post somewhat motivational and inspiring. Your advice is simple, yet useful. I spend way too much time with input. This notion of input/output has never occurred to me before. This may partly explain why my dreams are so strange. Just last night, I dreamt I was taking a test with many unfamiliar words. One of the words was "specticle". I cheated while taking the test and looked it up in a dictionary; a "specticle" is a general in a military. I don't remember the other words, but I do remember having less than half of the test complete with only 10 minutes left. It was a feeling of hopelessness.

  I have noticed that if I do get started writing, it feels as comfortable as reading. It's hard to get to that point, though.