To thine own self be true

“The boughs of no two trees ever have the same arrangement./Nature always produces individuals.”–Lydia Maria Child, Letters from New York–second series (1845)

‘Connection’ is a desirable aspect potentially achievable with the dead and living, and via the real, fictional, and online–but it is best, of course, realized through close connection to friends, a ‘significant other’, family, one’s children and (great) grandchildren.

However, the fact remains that we are all of us individuals and regardless of how connected with and empathetic we are with others, our main consciousness and experience is largely ‘separate’, separated, unique, and individual. We are each of us defined and, to some extent, limited by those two things. We, each of us, have individual characters, personas, values, beliefs, styles, voices, senses of humor, and so forth which identify us and which are uniquely us.

Much of our days are spent ‘inside’, largely isolated from others. Our inner life and personal experience are how we, to some extent too, measure many, if not most, of our interactions with others, places, and events. Often, we are comparing and measuring our relative contentment, satisfaction, happiness, status, and success during our contacts with others.

The fact is, as any depressed person or psychologist would likely tell you, we have to live with ourselves, accepting who we are, our limits and limitations. Oftentimes, our dreams may frustrate us by the simple fact they cannot be achieved or don’t match up significantly with those of others we wish to be with or, perhaps, love.

“To have one’s individuality completely ignored is like being pushed quite out of life
Like being blown out as one blows out a light.”–Evelyn Scott, “Escapade”

Hamlet’s “To thine own self be true” has long offered a wisdom and perspective about these conflictful matters. The honest person and the most self-accepting person is the one who is and remains true to his/her own personal nature and potentialities, with all the limits and limitations that that thought implies.

Ironically, it is on the basis of self-acceptance and self-knowledge that one can proceed to have a good, happy, fulfilled life. Obviously, freedom has a lot to do with this possibility once adulthood has been achieved. The lucky persons who are free are able to construct his/her own day, make of it as they choose, even without worrying how much something may cost. The true individual moves through the day without worrying what others will think of his/her dress, appearance, behavior, and choices. He or she makes his/her own day or own life.

The true individual kowtows to no external, extraneous, bogus authority who prescribes how others should live. The free-est individual is able to think and create freely, expressing whatever he or she thinks. It is from such a position of self-possession and conscious will that individuals can and ought to live freely with as much social interaction and connection as they choose or require.

The simple fact, too, is that we are who and what we are. For that, we need may make no apologies if we do not conform to the many wishes, limits and limitations imposed on us by others. It is for others to figure out their own responses and to construct their own meanings within their own lives and worlds. Although we can offer our best opinions, advice, and help, it is up to others to make their own meanings and purposes as individuals within their own lives and experiences. In that, the free-est and best sense of what it means to be an individual and to account for the unique individuality of each of our basically autonomous lives.

“I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.”–Emily Bronte, “Stanzas”

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Connection to self is as important, if not moreso, than connection to others, as noted in the previous entry.

Although we each may have limits and limitations, it would be a far worse thing to be living life mostly on others’ terms. It is important to know or find out who we are and to be what we are and find our own best meanings and life purposes. Socrates’ “Know thyself.” Pretty basic.

To really know, accept, understand, and appreciate any other person, we may have to accept their limits, flaws, weaknesses, and foibles as well as their positives, strengths and talents; in short, to know, accept, understand, and appreciate them as they totally are, as unique individuals. In Citizen Kane‘s climax, “Rosebud” turned out to be a key missing piece, though only one of the numerous jigsaw pieces that made up Kane, reflected in turn by the many episodes and eyewitnesses of his life story.

I choose this island
and its freedom from false face.
I select a landfall apart
from the swell and tides of others.

I claim this lone strand
for the Dominion of Self.
Unattended by minions, I live
without the cant of congregations.

Self-governed, yet worthy
I shun the uncentered
fawners for lost pieces
in the shadows of Other.

I pick my comings and goings,
my music and arts.
I cull first flowers
and pitch the weeds of dependence.

My mind sharpens and sculpts itself
in monuments to glory and love
begging naught of another.

I go it alone, unafraid and unperplexed.
Respectful of this reign,
my hopes people this island.

I harvest the metaphors of life
with a timeless abandon
that knows no thought of Other.

Bygone, the grey deep moans,
now distant, unheard.

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“I sometimes think I inhabit my own country.”–Tennessee Williams

Where were you in the spring of 1990, when this was written?

The starting points of this poem were Paul Simon’s “I Am a Rock” which I, only child teenager and wanna-be performer, easily and naturally assimilated some 25 years before. And many diverse rebel characters of literature and film such as Brando’s Johnny in  The Wild One, Costner’s character in Dances with Wolves, and Lawrence of Arabia in Lean’s film. There are always risks to being an individual–one is often considered dangerous, “mad” and misunderstood, but it goes with the territory.

The poem is simply a fearless paring down to Self and Other with a declaration of freedom from ‘the pack’. Sometimes it is necessary for a person to leave the group in order to survive, shore up, and move ahead. You, too, may experienced the need to accept and ‘bless’ or ‘coronate’ yourself in a way not unlike Emily Dickinson’s “The soul selects her own society.” There is a heady power, strength, confidence, and zen certainty when one begins to realize what one is capable of as in this issued ‘manifesto’ of sorts. In my case, it was the freedom to “harvest the “metaphors of life” via the arts, writing in particular and the power of brave new inspired words.

Does the poem tell the whole story? Not, of course. What of family, love, etc.? In retrospect, true. but as turning points go in individual growth and freedom, the integrity and spirit of this poem is not a bad place to be, if necessary.

Life being largely about the impact of the world on an individual.

Beginning with the flow of images, sounds, language, feelings, thoughts–various information via lived experience.

Received, filtered, organized, processed by the individual’s senses, body, mind, feelings via imagination, intelligence, and empathy.

Thereby generating important meanings, understandings, epiphanies including pattern recognition, meaning-making, personal understandings, and expression/sharing of same.

What might also be called the potential development of a sensibility with resulting integrity, values, and style.

In short, what comprises a fully-realized, autonomous individual.

The more developed and multitudinous the sensibility, the more interesting the person, the broader and richer the quality of experience and capacity for empathy, connectedness, expressiveness and creativity.

What is important, then, to any individual is obtaining and knowing the information that satisfies curiosity, that is wanted, needed, necessary, missing, missed in order to maintain ‘life-flow’, to ‘move forward’, to develop, and to grow.

Life’s information cannot be understood or expressed without language, thought, and feeling, and sometimes whatever missing experience.

Ultimately, throughout a day and life, whether one realizes it or not, one searches for the very information that is necessary to live more fully, freely, connectedly, and purposefully.

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2 inspirations: The Information, a book by James Gleick, and watching my grandson up to his seventh month.

“Sensibility” is one of those good old ‘lost, forgotten’ nineteenth century words, as in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

We all seem to be ‘looking for something’ at a given moment or at various stages of our lives. In the case of the latter, the missing pieces usually complete some understanding of self, others, or something we previously lacked. Often, we are just plain impelled or driven ‘blindly’ toward whatever unknown missing information or experiences that enable the potential to complete ourselves or to fulfill our destinies (and which we don’t know till we ‘get there’).

Something in all of this individual process that seeks freedom (of self or via something or someone else) and personally satisfying and fulfilling connection. In any case, it is the flow, the process, or ‘the journey’ as the old quote goes, that matters and reveals most.

And reflecting many of the entries that follow–it is in the knowing or consciousness of same that lies the meaning and purpose. Facilitated by words, thoughts, and feelings understood within and expressed to/shared with others. In that, finally, meaningful communication and the possibility of significant connection and relationships as well as whatever resultant positive personal and social actions and behaviors.

There is a certain inevitability to this site given how suddenly and dramatically the world has changed, how e-media has offered new and different audiences for whatever shared writing, and my own drift of aging consciousness ready to ‘go on record’ about a host of potentially interesting or significant ideas and perspectives. To quote Shakespeare again, “The readiness is all.”

Why the site title “To thine own self be true…”? Historically and culturally, Hamlet has had a profound influence on the minds and sensibilities of many, particularly the young. Not only did I study this play in grade 12, but for decades taught it and noted its effects on other young people looking for something thoughtfully heroic or spiritually uplifting and inspirational.

I could just as easily have called this site ‘Thereadinessisall.ca’ given how much I have similarly quoted or come back to it as much as “To thine own self be true”. These quotes have been great life-anchors and have been for many others over the years in widely different and crucial circumstances or contexts.

The longer I live, though, the more I become aware of why it is basic and necessary to be true to oneself. In a world where it is often difficult these daze to find anything resembling certainty, who or what can you rock-bottomly count on to some degree? Whose life and life experiences matter most of all to you? Through whose eyes do you experience the days, others, and the world? Who, of all people, would you be most disappointed to let down? Who do you have to answer to the most? Who do you know best and want to know more about relative to values and beliefs? At the end of your life, who is the one person who mattered most of all to you in your life? (c.f., 1st entry that follows for more thoughts on this.)

Certain facts and unavoidable answers to the above questions enabled me to make my choice as to who most mattered in my life, and why I have lived the way I wanted and chose to live. Seen that way, “The readiness is all” may well basically reflect the readiness to be true to one’s self, one’s ideas, convictions, values, and grounding perspectives. The result can only be honesty with self (and others) and the possibility of living an authentic/true life, true to one self and whatever personal core.

The Site Entries

“The quality of your happiness depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”–Marcus Aurelius

These personal expressions will vary somewhat (i.e., prose, poetry) and may include things I’ve written at other times over the years; so they are not necessarily appearing in the chronological order in which they were written. There will, however, be a connecting, developing thread between entries when read from the earliest to the latest. (*So whenever a reader jumps into the latest entry, he or she will be joining this process blog in media res.*March 2014/looking back, this thematically-threaded series lasted until Oct 2012, when I gave myself permission to write more  freely and relevantly to the days of given entries. There is far more variety of topics since that shift. However, it is interesting to go back to see how I began this voyage of consciousness dealing, foundationally, with the “most basic life-topics of all.’ There are many basic insights and observations in the first three months of prose probes. Each entry, in any case, expresses what I have perceived to be the truth about some topic.

Ever the teacher, it is my hope, though, that there will be something positive in the points and experiences I convey enough to be of some use to you in perspective-ing your own developing consciousness about how you feel about and experience life yourself. Thanks for tuning in and reading.

All personal selections entry-date-copyrighted by the author.