@boagie,
I like that very much, thank you.
Experience is inherent to identity--but how are you to express the experience in a way that is particular to yourself? If I experience the loss of a loved one, how do I encapsulate /my/ loss and not just /a/ loss (that is, we all experience loss, but these losses are particular to our individual feeling). Through metaphor, or poetry, I think. And therein lies the creation--or realization, of a "self."
Quote: Upanishads put it, "The Self In One, Is The Self In All"
Read in the above context--the loss in one, is the loss in all; the greatest poetry is universal, or "In All," yet it is particular to that poets feeling, or "In One." A paradoxical convergence.
More stuff for me to mull on, thanks for the post.