So, I'm reading over Banach's lecture and something he says immediately catches my eye. It catches my eye because it is all too familiar to me "the ways in which we try to excuse our actions by pretending that we are simply our bodies and are controlled by the forces that determine them". As a matter of fact, I was guilty of this exact thing yesterday. My friend and I were talking about how we were worried about making new friends in college. I said, "I'm not the kind of person that walks up to somebody and says 'Hi! I'm Yazmin! Wanna go get lunch together?' Most likely, I'll be waiting for someone to talk to me and take it from there". But when I think about it and from reading Banach's lecture, why can't I be? If I have "human freedom", why can't I change that about myself? The real question is if I change my personality, will I be content with myself? Will I feel like I'm being fake? Honestly? The answer is "yes". If I suddenly woke up one morning and decided that I was going to be super perky and outgoing, I would be completely and utterly FAKE. Those who know me would ask who the heck was in my body. Maybe I would be content because I was making friends but it would be fake because I wasn't being myself. But what really intrigues me is that "no matter how I try to avoid it, I am free to do whatever I choose". Why does it intrigue me? Because this gives me no excuse to limit myself. By limit, I mean that I can do whatever I want, be whoever I want to be. I just had a thought...... If I can be whoever I want to be, does that mean I don't want to be me, meaning that I'm not authentic?
One question that really stood out to me was Mara's. She asked, "Would you say that figuring out who you are has to do with the meaning of life?" As I ponder that in my mind, I still say that I have no answer for that question. I mean, does anyone really know who they are? And not just the basics like your history or your dreams. Really, who is anybody? You know those people that go on vacation for a while to "figure out who they are"? When they come back, do they ever have an answer? Isn't figuring yourself out a life long journey? Some people never even know who they are. Where do you even begin to look? Would the answer be a one word answer? Like, "I AM BLANK?" Or would that be a conversation that lasts for days? And is the meaning of life figuring out who you are or learning about who other people are? If the meaning of life has to do with just you, I'd say that meaning was pretty selfish.
I can see that I'm pretty much getting nowhere. One answer equals a million new questions.
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Yazmin,
ReplyDeleteI found your post interesting. The way you perceive your personality as the definition of who you are internally brings me back to Banach's idea where he talks about how many use the fact that "I am my body, or my brain, or my personality, or my hormones" as an excuse to limit the things they do. He says that "in each of these cases, I am deceiving myself" and that we are more than just these, which leads me to wonder what does he mean by more. Because like you, I always thought of ourselves as our personality. And that what we are in our minds are projected through our personality thus mind=personality. But apparently Banach disagrees with this notion. I found it true that if we don't stay true to our own personalities that we are being fakes but Banach is saying that being our personalities is self-deception. I don't know what he's actually asking us to be.
"If I can be whoever I want to be, does that mean I don't want to be me, meaning that I'm not authentic?" I think it just means that you have the freedom to decide what role you want to put on and it depends on what you mean by "me." Is that "me" your personality, or your mind?
Your second paragraph reminded me of what I wrote in my post. Like do people have sudden revelation of who they are or is it something that takes a whole lifetime to figure out or if it's even possible to find out at all. When you say "some people never even know who they are," it makes me wonder if I'll be one of those people. It's scary to know that there's a chance that you will never be able to find who you are and what your purpose is in life. And matter of fact, what is the definition of "who you are?" If it's not your body, your brain, your personality, or your hormones as Banach poses, then how are we supposed to define ourselves? How would we describe ourselves if we're not allowed to say we're girls, or doctors, or mothers, or someone who is perky?
Your post really made me think a lot and really clarified a lot of my thoughts. Thanks for the post. It was really relatable.