if you care about kegan's stages, stage 5 is partly about holding the contradictions at the same time. something something i contain multitudes
"fundamental changes in my personality and values" sounds so strange to me. like i wouldn't call it your personality or values if it only happens occasionally
hmm i am probably misusing the word "personality" but i always thought of it as a local feature instead of a global one, eg. people often have an at-work personality and an at-home personality? because of issues like, if you think personality is global and believe in containing multitudes then how do you know which of the multitudes is your personality, etc.
i cannot for the life of me remember what this was called but my buddhist philosophy professor in college once introduced this (controversial among scholars of traditional buddhism) new idea that nothing exists independent of other things and so any "thing" is really just how we understand the sum of that thing's relationships with other things
one of the examples he gave was exactly what you just mentioned, but since the class wasn't really focused on this idea, he left it for us to think about. i think what i ended up accepting was that my relationship with my parents is just as real as my relationship with my friends (and so who I am in each of those relationships must be real). sure you may prefer one over the other, or think that one is more fitting for your future/more adjusted self, but i don't think it makes the other one wrong
and then to reconcile the idea of having some "base-personality", i interpret that to mean that my base personality is the one "aware" of all the "sub personalities" etc. and that it's less of an actual personality than it is just some meta concept
i think what i ended up accepting was that my relationship with my parents is just as real as my relationship with my friends (and so who I am in each of those relationships must be real). sure you may prefer one over the other, or think that one is more fitting for your future/more adjusted self, but i don't think it makes the other one wrong » yeah, i think that makes a lot of sense :)
base-personality sounds like the ego in a lot of ways, and i think the idea makes sense as long as you don't think of it as an actual personality
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all time, all ages, and all conditions.
A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts.... What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only; the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable Object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
if you care about kegan's stages, stage 5 is partly about holding the contradictions at the same time. something something i contain multitudes
"fundamental changes in my personality and values" sounds so strange to me. like i wouldn't call it your personality or values if it only happens occasionally
hmm i am probably misusing the word "personality" but i always thought of it as a local feature instead of a global one, eg. people often have an at-work personality and an at-home personality? because of issues like, if you think personality is global and believe in containing multitudes then how do you know which of the multitudes is your personality, etc.
i cannot for the life of me remember what this was called but my buddhist philosophy professor in college once introduced this (controversial among scholars of traditional buddhism) new idea that nothing exists independent of other things and so any "thing" is really just how we understand the sum of that thing's relationships with other things
one of the examples he gave was exactly what you just mentioned, but since the class wasn't really focused on this idea, he left it for us to think about. i think what i ended up accepting was that my relationship with my parents is just as real as my relationship with my friends (and so who I am in each of those relationships must be real). sure you may prefer one over the other, or think that one is more fitting for your future/more adjusted self, but i don't think it makes the other one wrong
and then to reconcile the idea of having some "base-personality", i interpret that to mean that my base personality is the one "aware" of all the "sub personalities" etc. and that it's less of an actual personality than it is just some meta concept
i think what i ended up accepting was that my relationship with my parents is just as real as my relationship with my friends (and so who I am in each of those relationships must be real). sure you may prefer one over the other, or think that one is more fitting for your future/more adjusted self, but i don't think it makes the other one wrong » yeah, i think that makes a lot of sense :)
base-personality sounds like the ego in a lot of ways, and i think the idea makes sense as long as you don't think of it as an actual personality
“All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
And yet after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all time, all ages, and all conditions.
A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts.... What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remains to him only; the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable Object, that is to say, only by God Himself.”
― Blaise Pascal