Area you really what you are? I mean , In essence, we all are human blood & flesh, but in the everyday life, we all seek to do things to make ourselves be and/or appear to be something greater than just a plain old human being.
Retailers sell us cloths that they claim will make us look better. If we look better, we are more popular. If we are popular, we are more recognized by others. In truth, by wearing the latest fashions, we are not trying to wear them because they are more comfortable. Rather, we will wear just about anything to make ourselves look “greater” than thoe around us.
We have this natural tendency ti define ourselves with external things.
[b]My question: Why do you think all humans have such a strong, innate desire to be greater than others…even to the point of doing a lot more than we normaly would, just so we can appear to be something more than we are?
Wouldn’t life be the same if we still had a general sense of ambition, yet had a significantly decreased desire to promote ourselves with things we own or wear?[/b]
i always thought i really am truly. but am i am ? however, many people i have met seemed to opperate on the erroneous belief that they are truly really, and as such couldnt really be truly. but once you noticed that you truly are, really… that position becomes untenable.
ofcourse it can be speculated that you cant really be truly unless you really are, and also untill you really are what you are. wether that is really true, or truly real, seems impossible to decide. however, its really difficult to truly pick either stand without seriously good reasons.
What you are talking about is the latest craze’s. people who will do just about anything to be recognised etc. These people you speak of are ‘‘ignorant’’. I am too but i am not ignorant by choice, i have the desire to ‘‘know’’ but i am still ignorant because my views/opinions are just that, ‘‘opinions’’ but the ignorant by choice are those that are satisfied by doing the everyday things in life, and why shouldn’t they?
A quote i know ‘‘It is better to be a human unsatisfied than a pig satisfied’’. This quote may apply to you and i but the majority? I would be so sure of that. They say ignorance is bliss, for as long as your ignorant one obviously
I think its very difficult to truely be yourself as there are so many ideals and associations we make that it affects us at a subconcious level, so even if we try to be ourselves there is always an element of influence. I think we make associations about people dependant on what we can sense about them and we place meaning on those things. We also base our own perceptions of ourselves at least partly on the perceptions others have of us. Naturally we are a prejudice species because we label and define and maybe we all create what or who we want to be and associations we want people to have about us. I think man naturally has a strong sense of self identity which maybe linked to a natural need to express and create. This might also be due to the competitve nature of man too… we want to ‘appeal’ and ‘fit in’ or ‘stand out’ because we want to feel desirable (survival of the fittest), and our image creates within us a confidence and helps us to feel accepted and wanted.
Lol, yes and no…nice point
What else can we be other than ‘our self’ ? (i can think of many theories here so i dont know why i’m actually asking that but yeah, anyway ) If i’m acting out of character after drinking 7 glasses of wine, or i only wear blue clothes because of conditioning, am i still my ‘self’, … sure i am…i think, but no, im not sure i am … i would seem to be a conditioned ‘self’, so whether thats still me being my ‘self’ i dont know, and it has to assume there is a self which i dont know anyway so we cant say its impossible without making assumptions about the ‘self’. I feel the need to talk about free will here but then thats another thread and i’m not convinced that exists either, so ugh head explodes
so, if I’m understanding you correctly, you are saying:
“…Tecnicaly speaking, it is impossible to be anything but our own-selves. However, we can do things (of times, extreme things, like getting very drunk) that will (unitentionally or intentionally) cause us to be something else than we really are…”
I personally do not believe that anyone has a true identity. When asked the other day what were my likes and dislikes, I could easily come up with some answers. But with the addition of new information, or just the passing of time, those answers could easily change. Who we are is based a lot on our environment, if our environment changes, it is likely that we will change. ‘I’, in a since, is only who I perceive myself to be. I am a result of years of conditioning. As I grow older, I change, physically and mentally. In essence I wasnt the same person I was before. We are only who we truly are, for that moment.
Yes and no and thank you for making me think about what i implied. If the above is that which i implied then i didnt wish to imply that because that would be a contradiction if we keep the definitions of ‘self’ constant, and wouldnt seem to make sense, even to me, but i dont think i meant to imply that we could be anything other than our 'self, despite influences. I confuse myself a lot
Is the self real ? or is it a dillusion? Self image is an illusion, the ego, the I, the me, it doesn’t really exist. Yet we believe it to be as real as the table in front of me, we constantly try to satisfy it, to become “perfect” whatever our conditioned idea of perfect may be… to make more money, get a better car, clothes… etc… It truely is stupid. My personal theory is it came about through communication. Once we began to think of ourselves in terms of I, or me, we began to create this false image which replaced the body. If you think of it the means of survival is to protect and sustain the body. Your hungry you search for food, and eat. Yet this I this me, this self image became most important. We constantly do things that our not good for our body, or our survival, yet we do so to satisfy the I. ITs not rational in the least, the I has become predominant, more important then the body. So we follow these illusions, as being the real me, the most important… but thats all it is. Most of us are constantly in our heads, most of us are constantly living in dillusion.
Our notions of ourselves, our self image is the content of past knowledge, so we are constantly meeting the present with the past. Constantly caught in the past, not seeing the present as it truely is, and therefore destroying it. Is it real? or are we living a lie? It isn’t real, for most of us our actions are not based on intelligent thought, they are based on the self, our conditioning. I think it is one of the most important questions one can ask, and investigate. What am I? And after clear examination, I think most would realise that they are not the I the self, the me.
I thought that humans evolved to try and better themselves over others to survive. A lie about yourself, for instance, can cover up something that would otherwise damage your chance of passing on your DNA, or it can improve your chance.
For instance, guy walks in a club and starts talking to a girl. Tells her he’s got a brand new car, not a Nova or something as bad. Got a good job, middle manager of a company. Truth is the exact opposite, but he’s just improved his chance of getting with her and covered up details that would lessen this.
All humans are inheritantly selfish to an extent? Like most people do no consider how the food they get got there, just that it’s there in front of them. Most people (that I know) would not deliberately harm another human for their own benefit if the situation was right in front of them, but when it’s hidden behind other things like a global market you don’t have to see what’s going on beyond yourself.
This is my first post here and some of you are pretty deep thinking so I’m sorry if I’m off topic!
I can think of at least one possible resons for this:
humans, by their very nature, are really not so inately “good” as many people might have you believe. All men desire immediate gratification of their needs and wants…regardless of the results it might have on others.
Men however, find that getting what you want the way/method/means that appears initially to be the quickest often times results in consquences (upon the man) that obstructs the man’s ability to gain his desired thing.
Hence, our entire society is probably built on pretenses. Society barely hangs on to civil-ness, but somehow seems to never collapse al at once.