Am I Aware

M.C. Escher’s famous lithograph Ascending and Descending shows robed figures trudging up and down a staircase that loops endlessly—always climbing, yet going nowhere. It’s a haunting image of futility and paradox. This visual captures what cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter calls a strange loop. In this self-referential system, you end up right back where you started by navigating through layers that seem to move upward or forward.

Now think about this question: "Am I Aware?"

The moment you ask it, something strange happens. Who's asking? And who's answering? It feels like you're looking inward, trying to find some core "you" that can verify awareness.

“Am I aware?” isn’t just a question. It’s a trigger. It flips the switch on a strange loop. The self observing the self. Awareness reflecting on awareness. And just like in Ascending and Descending, you never quite reach a final step—you just keep looping through levels of self-reference, each one feeding the next.

These two paradoxes may seem trivial initial, but they both tie to a much deeper truth, and the question that demands us to look deeply, but none has.

UNTIL NOW.

Check out “The FIrst Question” blogpost to find out more.