Who am I
I mimic you and dress like you. I don't think i fool you. You are a foreign culture and i am a small bird from another land posing as one of yours so that I can live amoungst you. But at times, regardless of all your effort I am unsure who you are and what you want from me. I attempt to assume a competent comprehending gaze in your direction but wonder if you see through it. I hope by not saying too much or too little, or being too fidgety or too stiff to avoid your curiosity and eventually your analysis and your judgement of who it is I am. But I wonder as your gaze recedes what do you think of me?
Well put. The chasm between self and others is a strange, rather frightening fundamental. One has a dual role: the centre of one's own universe, and a character in many other people's. The less one's happiness is dependent on success in the latter role, the strong and more content one is likely to be. But we need a certain amount of supportive touch and validation from others before we can feel confident in our independence, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteThank you Drodbar! I agree with you but sometimes fear the efforts of attaining the support and validation of others may at be the price of my identity, so I dismiss this support as unimportant, perhaps at the cost of my confidence. (well except for you of course ;-)
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ReplyDeleteDrodbar,
ReplyDeletewell, being what I think of as uncharacteristic for me, I thought I would ask you for your opinion about my mini poems? One is posted "as i sleep" the rest were inspired by unreliable witnesses PostIts, were created there, and left there.
Please don't make an effort to be nice if you comment and u don't like them...i am just curious.
if you find them juvenile or overly simple or just plain bad that is ok, please don't worry about offending me.
But just like everything else is balanced (the darkness vs the light, the happiness vs the sadness) so it is with otherness.
ReplyDeleteYes, we otherfy both ourselves and the others daily. And I do agree with the coolest blogger in the entire Internetty that the approval of others is sometimes necessary. But, as it happens with balance, some people will like us, and some won't. Perhaps that's what we're afraid? That they will see something of us, which we consider to be bad and in need of change, and they will think the same? Rejection? Or rather, validation of the rejection, since it is us who disapprove of ourselves first?
p.s. I liked Adieu a lot. It feels very sincere.
Hi Intelli, yes i think there is lots of truth in what you said about judging ourselves through other people. But I think sometimes, we are sensitive to peoples judgement because we are social creatures who rely on what others think of us for social interaction as well as for more practical, physical, benefits as well, such as job opportunities, bonuses, raises, promotions.
ReplyDeleteThank you for Adieu, it was strange, it was like it wrote itself....so perhaps it was very genuine as it must of come from some deep part of me I was unaware of existed.
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