Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Judging a man...

One of the thoughts that has been on my heart and mind for some time lately is how people see you... how loved ones see you and how you see yourself.

Basic Psychology teaches us about ID and Schemas and complexes and personality and social issues - yet I am going to lump all of that together in this instance.

I think the way science defines it is all well and good for the most part to describe the issues we face with identity and self esteem and other such issues - yet the simple fact remains that a perfectly well adjusted person will attempt to balance all such issues... internal and external as best they can without crashing to far over to one side. Yet the flipside of that is in the course of events of your life you need to assert yourself and your identity and be unique and follow the passions that you choose even if over the course of the journey you find that the road you chose and felt best to follow... is not the popular choice. Others will have issues with your choices and good or bad they are your choices to make.

Conformity Versus Individualism

If in the course of your life you make small efforts to blend in to the crowd around you and do what you think is right - yet later on you find that you only did those things as they were expected of you rather than a real desire or as part of your identity of (the real you) - in that case to recognize the attempts to fit in as being part of the identity struggling to get out - most individuals will find regret remorse and respond to the past in a negative way and wish that things were done differently.

Alternatively the outside efforts of people, peers or pressure to make some events happen in your life or your identity can also affect your growth and development. These outside events can be negative or positive.

Just such instances are unfortunately most visible with negative issues in life that we then work to some degree and level to justify the event or to struggle against it.

I talk of course about childhood and family, world events and even growth and change in the society we live it. We find ourselves constantly in a struggle to some degree to accept or reject issues and events every day and whether or not to take such stresses on ourselves or to ignore them to some degree.

It is in these events and dealing with them that we find our identity - our visible and invisible self being made most apparent to ourselves and others.
When stress is on us and we cannot take the pressure and we explode or want to at some level - or when stress is on and we take it all in stride and deal with it effortlessly is all part of the self dealing with the world around us.

In a scientific sense it would be the same as poking a frog with a stick to see its reaction - external stimulus or just observing the frog in its own environs - the Self that the world sees and the inner identity that not even the world see is all made visible to some degree with events and stresses being the prodding point in our lives.

As children we grow up learning this hard lesson as we go along. The primary example is socially with first family, friends, relatives and the like... and with others like strangers and potential peers or role models. How each of those people interact with us and how we interact with them all play a large shaping role in our lives even to adult hood.

If in adult hood we seem to ourselves as maladjusted or others have that opinion of us it is up to us to justify the past offenses against the present ones and so on to reason and explain that this is in fact why we are the way that we are.
As the world says - I am a product of my environment - or the (It takes a village) mentality.

Unfortunately this is a flawed way of thinking and explaining Self and Identity. Pop psychology aside for a moment - Sorry Yes I did just build up all of the previous just to abandon it for the point of this topic.

The Flaw made visible...

The flaw in this line of thinking is that it gives justification and excuses and reasons without addressing the issue of the hurts and the stresses or even the positives of the past to shape us into who we are today... we find ourselves comfortable in the present state of self (mostly) that makes you not want to do the most obvious thing in the world when you are in just such a situation. Not for conformity sake but for the sake of growth and change that is needed in such a situation such as life and personality.

Growth, Change, Struggle of Identity and Existence coupled with the fundamental need to be completely happy with yourself and not settle for your present condition or state of affairs.

(Continued in next post)