What does the mind do
When we take a mental selfie
Not far from a picture we change
Sending out our improved image with technology
So like the image
So like the thought
The mind will make adjustments
More often than not
The idealized ego over time
Will now become the standard
Just who do we kid?
When we become the pandered?
…
DCG
Am I in too deep?
I’m always thinking of you
What is going on inside me?
It’s just my point of view
There are people in this world
They capture your essence
Even the grown man again becomes the adolescent
Don’t get me wrong
It feels good to express this
It’s not everyday this happens
A special someone who gives you bliss
We begin to ask questions
When reason alone cannot solve
But it’s matters of the heart
That must be resolved
We question our motives
Why our feelings run so deep
Allowing ourselves to open up
Sometimes it’s best to take that leap
I’d rather not lock down my emotions
Protect my ego and it’s trappings
Live my life as I really am
In all of my happenings
Better to be honest
Present the true self you wish to be
We attract what we project
At least that’s what I see
You might think it’s not worth it
Controlling your heart by keeping it still
The consequences of such action
Are imposed upon us by our will
You will never achieve any happiness
This resolution imprisons the Soul
I’d rather meet my world freely
Not surrender my ego to control
I’d rather risk sharing my true feelings
Than never to have let you know
This would be more tragic
To conceal with a fear to show
I don’t fear the stigma of rejection
I don’t just throw my feelings about
I am secure and hold myself accountable
Despite how things might turn out
…
DCG
There are times when we wake
From a trance like sleep
Giving in to an inner voice
Making promises we can’t keep
It is precisely in this time
We should vindicate our aspiration
Acknowledging a conflict building
Within this mindful vexation
Become clear about what is important
Clarify this in your deeds
Do not let unworthy influence
Give council that often misleads
WikiPsalm #Thirteen
DCG
The stories in my life
We reminisce driving down memory lane
The house we grew up in
Sometimes causes me bane
King of the neighborhood
I command all that I survey
Once smoked pot at that guys house
Once had a girl in that one and got laid
We measure looking backwards on how we might have been
Nostalgia distorts reality
Think you have a perfect memory
Bet some friends will disagree
Funny how we paint
With broad strokes on our canvass
Memories that are more forgiving
Selecting ones that take fewer chances
So we continue to repeat
This remembrance now faded
Pointing to the parts
That we’ve embellished and paraded
This process we use
On how we express
Accurate or not
It’s not really what we’ve done, but rather how we confess
Master and commander
Our pride on sentry
Telling our tales
In line with our gentry
Talk it up kids
Tell us of those deeds
The camouflage of ego
Will rarely ever concede
…
DCG
What value do we place on individuality?
Why is just being yourself so difficult? Being comfortable in your own skin meeting the world as it meets us will often place us in situations that test our resolve. When we persuade ourselves to be something we are not, when we try to convince ourselves to do something we should not in reaction to some event that confronts us simply because we are doubting our true identity, we risk losing our inner sense of perspective and betray our true selves. It is hard to predict the outcomes, but I think we may little by little lose ourselves to conformity. For a nonconformist, conformity is the slowest form of suicide.
Is social pressure greater to our sense of belonging that we must struggle to subdue our own individuality? In art and music, individuality is highly praised, even though many artists are inspired by others before them, they create something anew from something that has gone before, putting their own fingerprint on it somehow, someway. I believe there is a strong correlation between self confidence and individuality.
Perhaps we just have not found ourselves, know how we fit into a situation and we therefore try on different persona’s to see how they fare? We may not have a strong sense of self and adopt others styles, attitudes, or opinions for convenience so that we can be a part of something. We try on these persona’s like they are clothing, interchanging our identities as if they are fashion items, and discarding them when they go out of style. Wanting to fit in is a very strong motivator when we want to be a part of something and often leads us to behave in like manner in our social gatherings. Surprisingly we will also follow in kind with our logic and ethical thought.
Being human, and testing out new perspectives on ourselves can have healthy outcomes. It is when we force ourselves to adopt principles that we may not fully understand or endorse that alienate us from our true selves, or our moral selves that may cause us to have doubt during this time, yet we continue to behave in ways that we are not completely aligned with. The cognitive dissonance may eventually change us if this occurs as we may possibly be forced to alter our opinion, or alter our behavior to once again align for there to be intellectual and behavioral cohesion.
The problem for many is that they do not think about the consequences of their behaviors or thoughts, they have not given their position a full understanding, and are often lost to the potential pitfalls of reasoning or behaving. The lifestyle choice they have adopted may bring them elements that are not bargained for in their initial reckoning of it. This is of course what every human experiences on some level since we are not perfect beings, we fail, make mistakes in our judgements, and therefore modify our thinking or behavior after we test it out in the world. The notion of applying our common sense, and pragmatically living by learning from our mistakes is a common denominator that is experienced worldwide and has graced the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, American Pragmatism, and other thinkers though-out the ages.
When learning something new, one should worry about being unable to reach it. When one has learnt something, one should worry about forgetting it.
Confucius
It is complementary to adopt another persons influence on us when we demonstrate the impact they have on us. We model their behavior by doing what they have done. We see the world through another perspective, but a line should be drawn when we blur the distinction so much that we lose ourselves in living another persons vision. Blind impersonation is merely an imitation, to make it your own, one should adapt it to a vision that is personalized and reflects a view unique to you. Making the decisions to adopt things learned in a social environment is normal and expected. To make them work for you is up to you and your deployment of these pearls of wisdom. What I found most interesting during the younger years of my journey was the expectations of others in my encounters. The social interactions between strangers, and even friends often surprised me. As I grew older and experienced more, these conventions of conduct became more and more familiar to me, allowing me to navigate with more certainty.
Differing opinion on how we see the world is the basis for our differing on how we should proceed in the maze of human conduct. The point of singularity that changed me was when I adopted a corporate philosophy and core value system espoused to me by the company I worked for which my leadership did not wholly adopt with any sense of integrity, and therefore left me disillusioned thinking that they would follow the rules of conduct that they taught me. The larger the group, the stickier the code of conduct may become. The politics of being human has many inequitable outcomes for different people.
I can safely say that no matter what philosophy an entity adopts, following it is an entirely different question and much more important. The adoption of ideas are only as good as the behaviors that demonstrate them, namely: behavior is more powerful than words.
So I say one should be themselves in this world as much as one can be. The convergence of the pool of individuality is constantly blurred in the grand scheme of things and enters into a social construct of conformity. But also is the unique perspectives of individuals that should be held in high esteem, for there is no learning without climbing upon others shoulders to see what could not be seen before. The necessary progression of advancing is often helped by those around us.
How much does your inner persona agree with your outer persona? Are you truly living as the person you present yourself to be to the world? Whether the mirror test makes you think of your opportunities for more cohesion with your inner and outer states, or if the accounts of your public persona develop your mind for further inquiry; there remains an awareness of certain parts of oneself that would rather be kept silent from other discerning examinations. In psychology the term cognitive dissonance is the feeling of discomfort when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognition’s: ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions. In a state of dissonance, people may sometimes feel “disequilibrium”: frustration, hunger, dread, guilt, anger, embarrassment, anxiety, etc
The theory of cognitive dissonance in social psychology proposes that people have a motivational drive to cut dissonance by altering existing cognition’s, adding new ones to create a consistent belief system, or by reducing the importance of any one of the dissonant elements. It is the distressing mental state that people feel when they “find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold.” A key assumption is that people want their expectations to meet reality, creating a sense of equilibrium. Likewise, another assumption is that a person will avoid situations or information sources that give rise to feelings of uneasiness, or dissonance.
Values such as Honesty, Compassion, Integrity, Forgiveness, Love, Knowledge, Discipline, Faith, and Leadership are in the foundations of many cultures around the world. These ideas are instilled within the pillars of education in many societies and have an impact on those exposed to these teachings. The beliefs we come to know are influenced by such teachings, yet we sometimes are not so good as to put them in practice. We often take these teachings for granted and the development of these social skills are not efficiently used or thought out. Thus, we fail to properly acquire the awareness that allows our behaviors to consistently follow the congruent ideals behind them.
Cohesion between the inner self and the outer persona often equivocate questions about what you know and what you don’t know about yourself. We sometimes wear many hats in our lives, but do they share the core of values we bring to the world? William Shakespeare wrote the play “As You Like It” in 1599 which included the following excerpt…
Neil Peart’s lyrics in the Canadian Rock band RUSH borrowing from this theme wrote the song Limelight…
So if we are aware of such self examinations and find some incongruities, how do we decide which particular secrets and personal episodes we would share with others? The questions just keep coming! Are there indiscretions we have never shared that one should openly talk about? Are there subjects that we should discuss with others in our social networks to truly be an authentic person, or are there some subjects we should never talk about? Who will be effected knowing the skeleton’s that are buried deep within our closets? Who will we trust to keep our personal information in perspective without being unjustly judged from past volition’s? How does not being forthright complicate our dealings with our relationships, our associations, and or families? Does subduing this information affect the way we conduct ourselves in everyday life? Are we judgmental of others, and sensitive to those who may tread closely to these concealed experiences that we deny others of fully understanding?
A central proposition of existentialism is that “existence precedes essence”, which means that the most important consideration for the person is that he or she is an individual—an independently acting and responsible conscious being (“existence”)—rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits (“essence”). The real life of the individual is what is what could be called his or her “true essence” instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life. Although it was Jean-Paul Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger. The presupposition some make is that we have the capability to connect with our divergent selves as well as recognize that we can suppress, disregard, obfuscate, and be apathetic to the discoveries we find within our inquiries when we scrutinize ourselves.
I for one think that simplifying our lives can lead to some steps in the right direction. We can only control what we can control. The power to transform ourselves into the ideal of who want to be and who we actually are is a respectable notion depending on what that ideal is. My thought is that we as a culture overwhelmingly pay little attention to syncing our internal persona’s with our external behaviors in many instances of our lives. Maybe I am just deluded into thinking that such an idea is true for the majority of us due to the chaos we seem to invoke upon one another that exists all around the world. Whether this comes down to a “Zero-Sum Game” in the process of extending our true selves for others to see, or whether we should respectfully omit certain truths about ourselves from the others around us and not completely “come clean” with our dirty laundry is ultimately up that person. I respectfully submit to the reader that in many of these cases, honesty is the best policy, but the collateral damage that can be incurred is something to consider before the decision to align one’s selves (inner and outer) is effectuated. There are many tangents not covered in this post such as confabulations, attributes of the sub-conscious, issues of self-awareness, and mental disabilities, that will obviously augment the analysis and depth one can take this topic.
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
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