idea entry: week 09: october 28

word of the week: DETACHED

quotes:
"Our modern view is that one can remain free so long as one is in contact with the inner, private self, which is self sustaining. This inner self, whether viewed as a private self or as a soul, is an alternate means of being in the world. As Aristotle observed, the freedom to make moral choices raises one above an unpropitious environment." (Modell, 63)

"The density of social life made isolation virtually impossible. People who shut themselves up in a room were looked upon as exceptional characters." (Modell, 68)

"Not only are there multiple levels of the self in relation to time, but there are also subtle adjustments of the self in every social interaction. We are never precisely the same person with different people. The self that emerges in social interaction is a constructed self. " (Modell, 70)

[Modell, Arnold H. The Private Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993. Print.]

annotated source:

"I achieve self-consciousness, I become myself only by revealing myself to another, through another and with another's help. The most important acts, constitutive of self-consciousness, are determined by their relation to another consciousness. Cutting oneself off, isolating oneself, closing oneself off, those are the basic reasons for loss of self... It turns out that every internal experience occurs on the border, it comes across another, and this essence resides in this intense encounter... The very being of man both internal and external is a profound communication. To be means to communicate... To be means to be for the other, and through him, for oneself. Man has no internal sovereign territory; he is all and always on the boundary; looking within himself, he looks in the eyes of the other or through the eyes of the other...I cannot do without the other; I cannot become myself without the other; I must find myself in the other, finding the other in me (in mutual reflection and perception). Justification cannot be justification of oneself, confession cannot be confession of oneself. I received my name from the other, and this name exists for the other (to name oneself is to engage in usurpation)." (Modell, 88)

[Modell, Arnold H. The Private Self. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1993. Print.]

"He looks in the eyes of the other or through the eyes of the other...I cannot do without the other; I cannot become myself without the other; I must find myself in the other, finding the other in me (in mutual reflection and perception).”
This could not be truer. I believe this new embankment will give me just that. I will be able to find the answer. It is all so paradoxical and ironic. So by having a private self, we are really our self, because to be aware of our self, we must express our private self. “Cutting oneself off, isolating oneself, closing oneself off, those are the basic reasons for loss of self.” We could never win. Honesty to the self is embracing the private self and sharing it to others, but what would be so private about the private self is it isn’t really private at all? I understand that sharing and being in tune with your inner self confirms and consolidates the self. It is grey matter matter. We choose not to share part of ourselves to others because of so many social reasons, but does that mean that we are losing ourselves?

summary:
I take a part of how I find myself embedded in the physical public world and it lead me to want to understand how others find themselves. I feel completely split in half, my body is in one place and my mind is in another. One is tangible, touchable, taste able, see able and the latter, intangible. The body is just a vehicle to the mind. And yet for some reason, we are unable to drive ourselves to the place we want, the place our mind wants us to be. Are be bad drivers of the body? Why are we unable to fulfill the desired destination of our mind? Perhaps because we are 'bad drivers' we are unhappy. And we constantly feel this detachment and unsatisfactory feeling inside, which makes our mind and body never really in the same place at the same time. What a horrible way to live day in and out, driving our body around pointlessly to places we really do not wish to be at, but due to social obligations and responsibility, we bite our tongue and move from one point to the next on autopilot. Our mind is on vacation in parallel dimension.