Friday, January 12, 2007
now the question that we all have to answer for ourselves is this: what are we? are we the sum of our experiences? are we our actions, our intents, or some admixture thereof? are we our hearts, constantly fickle, or are we our opinions, changing (as they rightly should) with new information and the recognition of new circumstances? are we the negation of suppressed impulses, or can we be understood only in our moments of weakness, our sudden primal urges? can we even claim a continuous existence of self? what is the core unchanging presence that makes us who we are? for ideas come and go. lovers fade away. friends fight, and make up-- or not, and walk away. principles and promises that once seemed true and real lose their urgency and significance. we call it maturation, up to a certain age. but the process continues all our lives; and who is to judge the inherent quality of such changes? who is to determine the rightness or goodness of who we have become, or are in the process of becoming, since even rightness and goodness are qualities that are constantly being redefined and bickered over?
the answer (if it can be called one) is that there is none. all of us have to come to our own conclusion, grasp who we are, what other people see, the differences between the former two (for there, inevitably will be multitudes) and reconcile them. all this while we ourselves are constantly changing, moving from age to age, circumstance to circumstance, collecting opinions, truths, facts, and lies (whether deliberate or no). it's difficult, maybe even impossible. but we've our whole lives to do it. no excuse, and no justification.
i am legion.
+ fictions&fires
3:54 PM
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plangere, latin: to strike, or to lament.
in the depth of winter i finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
--albert camus
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to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
-- ee cummings
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