How Does Genme's Ability To Promote Individuality?

"What is man anyhow? What am I? What are you?" asks Whitman. Who we are, what our purpose is and what the meaning of life is are all mysteries that man has tried to solve from his earliest history. Whitman and Emerson explore these ideas in their works, Song of Myself and Self Reliance. Whitman, an American poet, and Emerson, an American philosopher, take different approaches in their search for self-discovery, yet within their solutions, many parallels can be found.

Soul theory argues that what makes a person who they are is not their physical presence, however, it is a person’s soul that differentiates them from an other living being (Perry, pp 3). The soul is one’s consciousness, their mind, allowing them to be present, experience and make decisions (Weisberg, January 2016). One’s personal identity is directly linked to one’s soul, if one has the same soul they are the same person (Perry, pp 4).

  1.  Discovering the Self – How do we perceive ourselves and our interactions with others?

Over one hundred years ago, transcendentalist poet Ralph Waldo Emerson declared, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Throughout time his message remains applicable as society attempts to conform everyone to its standards. The secular population tends to wrestle with the idea of individualism, like Emerson, alongside the idea of amounting to society’s uniform expectations. Today’s society sends out mixed messages; one encourages each person to embrace their uniqueness, and another message promotes the similarities between everyone. By establishing conflicting viewpoints, many people struggle to find an identity. Mary Oliver’s poem, “The Journey,” explores the inner

In the short piece, “An Army of One: Me,” written by Jean Twenge, there is an issue that is not only evident in today’s society, but in one that started well before the contemporary times. We relate these matters to the generation of baby boomers and also currently labeled, Generation Me. Generation Me is often criticized in having little to no self-esteem. Because of the prior generations, the word self-esteem seems to be brought up quite often in this passage. There has been a strong focus on mental health of a child growing through school and seems to be affecting their outcome as well as ability to learn. We live in a world where there is a push for the better of people, more so the consiouness of idividuality. Twenge inserts a lyric by Whitney Houton stating, “learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all time (756).” Twenge inserts this quote because of the issue brught up in the world today, the lack of Self esteem. What does it mean to have self and how does self-impact students today and beyond? To have self, it simply means how that person builds self-growth, an education and in real life realtionships. This certainly has a direct correlation and impact on how students experience in school and in real world living.

A lot of people in the world struggle with self-identity and understanding who they are, and the people and events around them in their daily life provide a sort of fill-in for the gap that exists inside of them, whether it’s in the form of jealousy or admiration. Instead of relying on themselves and making an impact on the world based on who they are themselves, these people often undermine their own identity and sabotage their lives and those around them by focusing on, obsessing over, and essentially depending on other things that only appear to be a part of them. In the novel A Separate Peace, the author, John Knowles, brings up this subject of the risk of dependency on self-identity through the main character and protagonist, Gene, and

Robert Thurman, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and Karen Ho share their ideas on different topics in each of their passages. In Thurman’s passage titled “Wisdom” he writes about one’s self and how acquiring his form of wisdom means that they are selfless, or willing to change themselves for the better or when the time comes. In “Biographies of Hegemony”, Ho writes about the type of society that Wall Street has created and how they continue to keep the same type of people in their elite group. However different the passages are, when thought about together they are applied to one another. The “wisdom” that Thurman describes would change people in a competitive consumption-oriented society that is Wall Street due to the reasoning that their

Transcenders do not contain the self they share it with others. Or in others words they are personally invested in things much larger than them to the point where outside factors affect them as if it happened to that individual. We see an example of one of the most famous Transcenders in The Transcendent Self, “Like Mother Teresa, what happens to the orphans of Calcutta is as important as what happens to herself.” (219). As our reach expands, our roots also embed

While all individuals will alternate between these ego states, T.A. seeks to primarily assist the client to consciously become aware of the ego state they are operating from at any given time. The behaviour and roles adopted in relationships and interactions can, in the absence

The self is interpreted by the individual and defined differently based on that individual. He or she as their actual selves and not pretending to be someone else to gain the satisfaction of others is the self. I am a first generation college student who grew up in one of Chicago’s most impoverished and threatening neighborhoods, Cabrini Green. My siblings look at me as a mother figure and role model. I became who I am today by the influence of my parents, school, and society. In this world, I will be a successful pediatrician at a children’s hospital where there is a need for people in this profession. Living mindfully and reflectively means thinking about your actions and self evaluating. When you live mindfully, you are aware of what you are doing and the consequence of your actions. Once you have looked back on those actions, you know that everything you 've done was mindful. What helps during this process is setting goals for yourself and self evaluation every day. Losing focus of your goals or being impacted by others can hinder someone during this process. The readings this semester have definitely had an impact on my thinking. They reminded of things about the education system, the government, and society that I usually don’t think about much but does cross my mind or I remember. It has for sure taught me that you can’t believe everything you are told from the people who you are suppose to trust or protect you. Which goes back to thinking for yourself. Immanuel

Pretend self is how individuals want to view themselves. This pretends "self" influence our internal thought and emotions. On the hand, according to Thurman in order to become our true self we have to become “selfless”. Pretend self is the product of context and immediate environment along with pack mentality, fear and selfish nature of individuals. However, the true self is the product of individuals interconnectedness which is not influenced by the context.

It makes us through the realization that if we aren’t able to recognize the self; we are living in

In the first chapter titled, “The Search for Glory”, Karen Horney explains a human’s potential to develop their own unique thoughts, wishes, interests and feelings, which is their real self. She describes the real self as, “ that central inner force, common to all human beings and yet unique in each, which is the deep source of growth”. The real self is all about the individual’s depth and clarity of their own feelings, strength of their own will power, special talents or gifts they might be born with, and are able to express themselves. The goal as they grow older is to grow toward self-realization. But first to expand their given potentialities, they must be provided with favorable conditions to grow. These conditions include a warm atmosphere, for a feeling of inner freedom and security encouraging them to have their own thoughts and feeling, leading them to better self expression. Next they need the good will of others in order to develop

Eastern enlightenment religions have been gaining popularity throughout the western world for the past few decades, with many people attracted to a "different" way of experiencing religion. As with many other enlightenment religions, Buddhism requires disciples to understand concepts that are not readily explainable: one such concept is that of no-self. In this essay I shall discuss the no-self from a number of modern perspectives; however, as no-self is difficult to describe I shall focus on both the self and no-self. Beginning with psychological aspects, and neurophysiological research on transcendental meditation, I shall discuss the impact of modern brain science on our understanding of the self and transcendence. Next I will outline

The journey of self-discovery of identity and culture is a very challenging process because it involves discovering and revealing the good and bad experiences that shaped us as human beings. The effects of self-discovery includes: happiness, disappointment, clarity, enlightenment, and even self-fulfillment. However, it also entails fear, doubts, confusions and misunderstandings. Most importantly, it also means finding our ultimate purpose of life. According to Abraham Maslow’s arguments, in “The Need to Know and the Fear of Knowing,” boils down to finding our inner and outer knowledge of oneself. He concludes that “all factors that permit courage, freedom and boldness will thereby also free our need to know.” He argues that when we safely release ourselves from unnecessary fear and pain, it is one way of freeing ourselves from mental and emotional traps. He asserts that by bravely re-visiting all our choices of life, digging deep into our childhood, and even exposing our unpleasant experiences will eventually make us wiser and stronger. He emphasizes that each approach could be culturally diverse and is also based on individual’s needs. For example: In “No Name Woman,” Maxine Hong Kingston argues that a ghost haunts her for publicly revealing the family’s secret about her aunt disgraceful past. She recreates the events of her life, both imaginary and factual stories to help her better understand the Chinese culture as well as to figure out what part from her identity is