Psychology

Make the leap

Posted 2006 November 23 @ 12:00, via Krynauw - filed under Psychology.

Comment posted 2007 January 24

kelly "A good deal is said these days about being oneself. It is supposed to be healthy to be oneself. While it is a little hard for me to understand how one could be anything else, I suppose what is meant is that one should not strive to become anything other than what he is. This strikes me as a very dull way of living; in fact, I would be inclined to argue that all of us would be better off if we set out to be something other than what we are. Well, I'm not so sure we would all be better off – perhaps it would be more accurate to say life would be a lot more interesting.

"There is another meaning that might be attached to this admonition to be oneself; that one should not try to disguise himself. I suspect this comes nearer to what psychologists mean when they urge people to be themselves. It is presumed that the person who faces the world barefaced is more spontaneous, that he expresses himself more fully, and that he has a better chance of developing all his resources if he assumes no disguises.

"But this doctrine of psychological nakedness in human affairs, so much talked about today and which allows the self neither make-up nor costume, leaves very little to the imagination. Not does it invite one to be venturesome. I suspect, for example, that in the Garden of Eden it might have occurred to Adam to take a chance much sooner than he did if Eve had been paying a little more attention to her wardrobe. As it was I hear she had to bribe him with an apple. Later on they say she contrived a saucy little something out of fig leaves.

"What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is – whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. Adam must have experienced such a moment."

George Kelly (1905-1967), The Language of Hypothesis, 1964, 157-158.

Updated 2006 November 24 @ 23:30, via Bruce

At their good-bye assembly at the end of Grade 7, my daughter's primary school headmaster, Joe Erasmus, admonished them to

"Rather be a first-rate version of yourself, than be a second-rate version of someone else."

Wise words.

Updated 2007 January 24 @ 10:08, via Krynauw

Referring to the remarks by George Kelly [above], I find it stimulating how he "teases" one's mind, how he challenges our so-called logic. At first it seems to lure us to agree wholeheartedly with the statement that it is good to be oneself. It seems so much common knowledge that it is almost "common" Then just a few sentences further he lures us to agree with something almost the opposite. Something which appears to say "no it is not good to be yourself, be more that yourself" And now we think we solved it all if we start to rationalize about being oneself and at the same time be more than oneself. Not so easy!

Why not? Okay, who are you? As defined by yourself, your wife, your boss, your playmate? And why should any of these defintions of yourself be the same and why should any of them be more or less valid than any other? So when are you going to decide to be yourself according to whose defintion? O yes and yourself as defined when? As you/they defined you when at school, varsity, the night out? Hey! That defintion of yourself is not cast in stone it is as flexble as clay in the hands of the definer at a particular time and place. O, you say you have an identity? Where? What is your indentity in China in the plane, at work, at home? One way to get out of this is to start beleiving that you are becoming more or less than what you are "defined" as by anyone, including yourself. Do not be surprised to find yourself in a situation where you will say "I know who I was, I have no idea who I am" So think again! Is it not a bit absurd to say "just be yourself"?

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Keywords: Psychology, George Kelly