Steven & arlia: For the most part, i don't explain this subject in great detail, as it's actually a personal internal matter. However, you BOTH expressed a personal interest for your own spirituality regarding my choice to cease capitalization of my name, and the pronoun i (though in the latter case i only do so when in reference to myself as opposed to when i would use it to refer to another person speaking in the first person). Because you have expressed this interest, i will share more specific details here, not for you to follow my own choice, but simply to allow you to understand my own reasoning here better in hopes that this will allow you to better understand how/if this kind of thinking is applicable to your own spiritual choices.
From time to time in my life i have taken a serious look at my beliefs, my relationships, and every other aspect of my being. At the time i was considering adopting this last name, i was also wrestling with a the aftermath in my own life and self-image from lifetime of being told how amazingly smart and creative i am by teachers, peers, employers, etc. While that's objectively true - i have always gotten top honors in academic pursuits, and always been promoted to positions of authority faster than expected, sometimes even to the point that bosses have had to get special permission to break company policies - i recognized that everyone else i met still had equal value as people and the potential to teach ME something in millions of areas in which their knowledge and experience exceeded my own. FRankly, when you've been told how 'special' and 'superior' you are your entire life, it's far too easy to FEEL superior. I decdied i wanted to PURGE any such arrogance from my conscious and subconscious thoughts.
I noted that our culture does NOT capitalize pronouns, EXCEPT for the 1st person singular 'I'. It occurred to me that this was itself an arrogant display of each person basically saying that 'I' am intrinsically 'better' than 'we', 'you', 'her', 'him', 'them', and 'it'. Not that anyone would consciously think of it this way, but that was the cultural message that our English fore bearers planted in our subconscious by this break from the etymological roots of our language's conventions. I decided that i would no longer do this, as a reminder to MYSELF that WE are all equal.
At this same time, during this introspective re-examination of myself, i was also recognizing the connectedness of all life, mostly just in the sense that we all descended form a common ancestor, but also (though only mildly so in MY case) from a metaphysical perspective. I thought about the convention in English to distinguish a common noun from a proper noun. When we are referring to a generic place, we don't capitalize the word, such as city, town, village, but when referring to a SPECIFIC place, to explicitly remark on its UNIQUENESS, we do, i.e. Dayton, Miamisburg, Riverside. Similarly for the distinction between 'person', 'man', woman', and 'Bill', 'Bob', and 'Ann'.
I do not BELIEVE the Hindu concept of Atman (an aspect of Brahman which resides in each person), but i also don't categorically REJECT it either. In fact, at the time i was doing this thinking, i hadn't yet learned of their beliefs enough to see the correlation between my own thoughts in this area and their millennia old doctrines in this regard. However, acceptance/rejection issues aside, my own thoughts on this area are SIMILAR enough to what i have learned about their religion's views in tis area that i would NOT seek to deny that there's a significant overlap between my personal views on this matter and the teachings of their religion in this regard, all while, of course, still rejecting their belief in an all encompassing metaphysical entity which they call 'Brahman'.
I wanted to also remind myself that all life was of equal value as my own, and that *i* was NOTHING special to the earth, to society, and to civilization as a whole, that i was simply ANOTHER of the billions of homo sapiens who has ever lived, and of the countless myriad other creatures with whom i have shared this planet. I considered that by treating my NAME, the most personal aspect of a person's identity, as a COMMON noun instead of a PROPER noun, that i would be continuously reminding MYSELF of the commonality of my existence and its connectedness to every other living thing.
There you have it. Thanks for your explicit interest in this personal idiosyncrasy of mine. I am always honored when one of my peers tells me that i have prompted them to re-think their own philosophies, just as the actions and behaviors of others i have admired in the past have led me to do for myself. Of course, there have been some incidents where the actions of others were the lens which allowed me to see a FLAW within myself as well, but based on your comments and their general tone i will allow myself the belief that this latter situation is NOt applicable here :-).
ADDENDA... Re the literary criticism issue raised by arlia in a post where she notes that she has also followed this convention for her own reasons, but sometimes runs into issues with the grammar police: I am taking formal schooling currently. I have to write multiple formal papers. I always advise my instructors of this personal belief, but i tell them that if they feel i must comply with the norm to show that i UNDERSTAND the norm, that i will NOT try to make it a religious discrimination issue and hassle them over that stance, i simply ASK if it's something they will not mark off for. So far none have objected, but if one does i WILL then follow the convention for that paper. The whole POINT of doing this is to REMEMBER that everything doesn't revolve around ME. Any such behavior would be explicitly counter to that goal, and i prefer to get the highest grades possible for my schoolwork. This isn't a vow to some imaginary being who expects me to SUFFER to prove my dedication, so i don't fee any need to do so, either. :-).
For your consideration.
