From The Healthy, Happy Human Being Wears Many Masks by Kenneth Gergen
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
From Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
Showing posts with label illusory self. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illusory self. Show all posts
Sunday, March 7, 2010
The Healthy, Happy Human Being Wears Many Masks
"the value that society places on a coherent identity is unwarranted and possibly detrimental. It means that the heterosexual must worry over homosexual leanings, the husband or wife over fantasies of infidelity, the businessman over his drunken sprees, the commune dweller over his materialism. All of us are burdened by the code of coherence, which demands that we ask: how can i be X if I am really Y, its opposite? We should ask instead: What is causing me to be X at this time? We may be justifiably concerned with tendencies that disrupt our preferred modes of living and loving; but we should not be anxious, depressed or disgusted when we find a multitude of interests, potentials and selves."
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Illusions
"The I is a thing of the moment, and yet our lives are ruled by it. We cannot rid ourselves of this inexistent thing. In our normal awareness of the present moment the sensation of selfhood is unshakeable. This is the primordial human error, in virtue of which we pass our lives as in a dream." pg 78
"If what is at issue is not truth but happiness and freedom, why must philosophy have the last word? Why should not faith and myth have equal rights? Formerly philosophers sought peace of mind while pretending to seek the truth. Perhaps we should set ourselves a different aim: to discover which illusions we can give up, and which we will never shake off. We will still be seekers after truth, more so than in the past; but we will renounce the hope of a life without illusion. Henceforth our aim will be to identify our invincible illusions. Which untruths might we be rid of, and which can we not do without? -- that is the question, that is the experiment."pg 83
John Gray, Straw Dogs
"If what is at issue is not truth but happiness and freedom, why must philosophy have the last word? Why should not faith and myth have equal rights? Formerly philosophers sought peace of mind while pretending to seek the truth. Perhaps we should set ourselves a different aim: to discover which illusions we can give up, and which we will never shake off. We will still be seekers after truth, more so than in the past; but we will renounce the hope of a life without illusion. Henceforth our aim will be to identify our invincible illusions. Which untruths might we be rid of, and which can we not do without? -- that is the question, that is the experiment."pg 83
John Gray, Straw Dogs
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