On the possible self
25.sep.2006 @ 12:26
With most objects of desire, physical nature restricts our choice to but one of many represented goods, and even so it is here. I am often confronted by the necessity of standing by one of my empirical selves and relinquishing the rest.
Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a "tone-poet" and saint.
But the thing is simply impossible.
The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed.
So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failures are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs, carrying shame and gladness with them. This is as strong an example as there is of that selective industry of the mind.
Our thought, incessantly deciding, among many things of a kind, which ones for it shall be realities, here chooses one of many possible selves or characters, and forthwith reckons it no shame to fail in any of those not adopted expressly as its own.
Quoted from: James, W. (1902). The principles of psychology. London: Macmillan. (Original work published 1890) pp. 309-310.
Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well dressed, and a great athlete, and make a million a year, be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a "tone-poet" and saint.
But the thing is simply impossible.
The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. Such different characters may conceivably at the outset of life be alike possible to a man. But to make any one of them actual, the rest must more or less be suppressed.
So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation. All other selves thereupon become unreal, but the fortunes of this self are real. Its failures are real failures, its triumphs real triumphs, carrying shame and gladness with them. This is as strong an example as there is of that selective industry of the mind.
Our thought, incessantly deciding, among many things of a kind, which ones for it shall be realities, here chooses one of many possible selves or characters, and forthwith reckons it no shame to fail in any of those not adopted expressly as its own.
Quoted from: James, W. (1902). The principles of psychology. London: Macmillan. (Original work published 1890) pp. 309-310.
Help wanted. Expatriate bloggers unite!
08.sep.2006 @ 00:53
During dark and lonely nights I may be a slave to the blogging blues. During daytime, however, I study psychology at the University of Oslo. I now face the final obstacle before joining the ranks of those educated for unemployment. The next eight months are solely dedicated to a research project of ......
Help, Windows Media Player has gone psychic!
06.sep.2006 @ 23:58
In what feels like my final hours, I welter under the blankets with a terminal case of self-pity (and the flu) as I keep death at bay by posting lists to my blog. It's hard to say which part is the saddest, my self-pity or the fact that I spend my time writing nonsense.Earlier today, I had......
