It is quite often said, almost abused - "I am my true self only with you!". There is nothing wrong with emphasising on 'only with you" - rather, it is in the 'true self' bit. Do we even know our true self? Do we even understand what is this 'self', as a creature, a person, its true-ness, its meaning...do we really understand?
An extrovert will not always feel comfortable in company of people...an introvert will not always be the quietest one...an optimist will not always manage to stay positive and a pessimist will still be hopeful (more often than he / she would like to admit)...a matured thinker would still want to be in touch with inner child...children often act more matured than adults...people in love do hate certain things about their partners...there is usually something to respect in the people we hate...a good friend could secretly want more...a confidant could betray...there are just about any and all possibilities for people to either do things that were not expected of them or do things in a manner that they themselves didn't know they were capable of!
We definitely act / react differently, we change...I don't know how we could cling on to the hypothesis - there is a true-self! At best, there is a sense of an outline to the true self, which we maintain more often than not...but definitely don't live within all the time.
We definitely act / react differently, we change...I don't know how we could cling on to the hypothesis - there is a true-self! At best, there is a sense of an outline to the true self, which we maintain more often than not...but definitely don't live within all the time.
We change because of external forces, experiences over time, learning from past mistakes... making us act / react differently - to same / similar situations & people over a period of time. It is rather futile to expect people to remain the same and react in an expected manner all through. More-over, there is this thing about being moody - how has been our day, how has been our mood at that moment - such small things could make us act / react in a manner that is not considered our 'true-self'!
The challenges, the priorities, the fears, the excitement that ruled our thoughts a decade ago, no longer remain and get replaced with a different set of challenges, priorities, fears...thus, how we live our lives today is different from how we lived a decade ago and how we will be living a decade from now!
My question is: if our basic priorities have changed, the basic need to do things has changed - where is the concept of 'true self'? Each phase of life sees a different version of 'true self' - I would even risk saying, each compartment of life (in same phase), sees a different 'true self'...why then are we so bothered about this concept?
It is almost impossible to categorise ourselves in a manner that will hold true in all situations, under all circumstances and irrespective of things at stake. I think the issue is not about being 'true self' with someone - instead it is a matter of being comfortable with someone. We, mistakenly, confuse the comfort of being accepted by someone as being allowed to be our true self.
Finding the true self, or the person we can be our true self with is not important...rather, it is important to be true! The bigger challenge is not being true actually, but knowing what is true...
No comments:
Post a Comment