Originally Posted by
jajdude
It's strange how important these images are to us, and they play a huge role in our lives every day. I wonder how the self-image is made. It doesn't seem to be a totally fixed or static thing, but something that doesn't like to stray too far from its own little place of comfort. In seeing your day to day activities and in being even a bit aware of your thoughts, you'll notice we are boring creatures, monotonous and habitual. We are fairly consistent in our behaviors and reactions, because we are so habitual, and we call this our personality. Something else that goes on, and we are well-trained to believe this, is that we think we are unique, different from others. In some trivial ways I guess that is true. We obviously occupy different bodies and have had some different experiences in our lives. I wonder if our minds are much different, our psychology. We might look at society and comment on how awful it is, as if we are somehow different from it. Is there any difference at all between you and society? Aren't all the things that go on outside of you the same as what goes on inside of you, more or less? This great struggle to succeed, to be somebody, with all the pettiness and envy, the ugly nationalism, the fears and judgements and criticisms and on and on.. It's going on all over the world and it's in the daily life of every person. You hear people comment, and on the Internet, how much people suck. It's as though they are saying, almost everyone is terrible but me. Well, how are you different, really? Didn't the society create whatever you are? You can't live outside it. The urges and fears and everything else that goes on in everybody else also go on in you.
I'm tired now, but it's interesting talking about these things. Most people I know would have no interest. I think they'd dismiss it quickly as nonsense. It doesn't seem to have any practicality, it's not about making money or getting ahead in life or getting laid or any of that. But we're going to live and die without understanding ourselves if there is no real interest in such things. Then our lives will have been meaningless anyway.