People ask all sorts of questions about themselves. i know this because i am a people, i ask questions about myself all the time, so i wonder that the same is true about everyone else, even the cynic introverted manic depressant cares about asking questions about themselves. most people, i think, ask questions about themselves that pertain mainly to the way that other people think about them. seriously, you see the picture... i am asking questions about myself wondering what others think about me, those same people are asking questions about themselves concerning what i think about them... so in the end we all act in the way which we believe will place a better light on ourselves in the eyes of other people who are concerned what i think about them. there is no end to this game, because people not only are worried about what others think about them, but they also want other people to think that they are less of a person than them. So I want you to think about me favorably, but also I want you to think that I am better than you, because when you think I am better that you you act in a way which authenticates my goodness, either by liking me and wanting to be like me or by hating me and telling others that i am not as good as you. both ways authenticate my betterness. so people are always asking questions about themselves. Do people like me? Do people find me funny? Good looking? Happy? Ugly? Stupid? Weird? Loveable? So we are constantly rating ourselves, which is probably unhealthy most of the time. How can we ask good questions about ourselves to spare ourselves from these silly games of promotion and a demotion, when in the end we all end up dead anyways! What are good measures which we may measure ourselves by? Surely to opinions of others are fairly biased and unpredictable, so can we trust other people? Sure, but should we really care for the most part what other people think about us that only know us externally? Surely the answer is no. So lets ask ourselves questions about the depth of love, the greatness of our courage, the farfatchingness of our dreams. Lets ask ourselves what life is really about? Money or Relationship? Material wealth or Family Stability? Debt or Sanity? Lets move past superficiality and begin to care about the stature of our character not the size of our waistline, albeit weight control speaks of character to a degree. Help me ask the right questions about myself, help me find peace not in the acceptance dependt upon fashion, but help me find peace in the satisfaction of my caringness.
These are lines from Goethe's Faust : (A young moldable student approached Dr. Faust to learn to speak well) Wagner: Forgive me, But I thought you were declaiming. Been reciting some Greek tragedy, no doubt; I wish to improve myself in this same art; 'Tis a most useful one. I've heard it said, An actor might give lessons to a priest. Faust: Yes! when your priest's an actor, as may happen. Wagner: Oh! if a man shuts himself up forever in his dull study; if one sees the world never, unless on some chance holyday, looks at it from a distance, through a telescope, how can we learn to sway the minds of men by eloquence? to rule them, or persuade? Faust: If feeling does not prompt, in vain you strive, If from the soul the language does not come, but its own impulse, to impel the hearts of hearers, with communicated power, in vain you strive -- in vain you study earnestly. Toil on forever; piece together fragments; Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, and blow, with ...