Quotes for identityKey Ideas and Useful Quotes to weave through (choose a few)
As D. H. Lawrence once said a man has an individual and a mob self in varying proportions. Often it is the individual self that creates differences from others and the way we, and our parents, negotiate these differences has a big impact upon our life’s journey. Our interaction with the various groups to which we belong, especially mainstream groups, and the way we relate with others, will determine our level of confidence. Sometimes this sense of difference can create insurmountable problems; other times, it may lead to greater strength.
As the former Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu once said, “a person is a person through other persons.” This statement alludes to the fact that belonging is critical to our sense of self as a person, and, most importantly we define ourselves through the quality of these relationships. (Connection to the prompt)… In other words, if “me” is defined by my connections, then who am I? (Explain / focus of essay): Sometimes these connections lead to happy, fulfilled and comfortable lives; other times these connections can lead to a problematic sense of self that is constantly developing through adversity. (One contrasting point) Contrastingly, are there circumstances where it may be possible to forge a life without connections and become “an island” that is not a “piece of the continent”?
Age writer and social commentator Hugh Mackay believes that “we are defined more by our interdependence than our independence”. This statement alludes to the fact that the groups to which we belong have a big impact upon our quality of life and our sense of self. Evidently if we enjoy positive and supportive relationships, then these relationships help us grow as people. Conversely, relationships can also stifle our personal development and lead to a great deal of trauma and unhappiness. Accordingly, how we negotiate our differences with others will have a big impact upon our sense of identity.
As Zorba the Greek wisely said, “a man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.” The statement alludes to the fact that it is important for people to try to follow their own path in life. Sometimes this can be difficult especially if we are encouraged to follow mainstream viewsd, values and expectations that often do not suit us. Ideally, this sense of self should be the object of one’s search to discover. It is also an ongoing process.
The Age cartoonist Michael Leunig sums up the struggle for many of us in life when he states: “any life lived well enough is nothing else but ongoing rehabilitation.” This statement suggests to the fact that for many of us finding who we are can be a difficult and often painful journey. During this journey we often spend a lot of time trying to deal with our problems and then just as much time trying to overcome them. For some this journey is much more difficult than for others.
Ralph Ellison once said, ‘When I discover who l am. I’ll be free’. For those who belong to mainstream groups in society, discovering who they is often relatively easy. However for those who find themselves growing up in marginal groups, or who suffer from a strong sense of disadvantage or from unfortunate experiences, growing up can be very painful. Such people often struggle to find who they really want to be. They are often forced to make difficult sacrifices in order to find a sense of place.
Author and social commentator Hugh Mackay states, “we are defined more by our interdependence than our independence”.
OR “We are individuals with a strong sense of our independent personal identity and we are members of families, groups and communities with an equally strong sense of social identity, fed by our intense desire to belong.” (Hugh Mackay)
“A person is a person through other persons.” (Former Archbishop of South Africa, Desmond Tutu)
“None of us comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are. A person is entitled to a stable community life, and the first of these communities is the family.” (Desmond Tutu)
Dr Michael Schluter, an important social thinker and founder of Britain’s Relationships Foundationdraws attention to the fundamental importance of relationships in our lives and its role in securing our wellbeing. The Age columnist, Ross Gittins also asks, “take away all our relationships and who would have much reason to keep living?”
The Age columnist, Ross Gittins emphasizes that we are, “above all, social animals”. After we have secured our physical survival, the most important thing in each of our lives is our relationships: with friends, neighbours, workmates and, above all, with our families – our parents, siblings, spouse and children.” He notes that even if we’ve avoided speaking to them for years, even if they’re dead and gone, we can’t stop thinking about them. If we have cut ourselves off from our family, be sure we’ve sought to fill the vacuum with other relationships. Take away all our relationships and who would have much reason to keep living?
(Sandra’s courage) As Frost points out in his poem, “the Road not taken”, it takes a great deal of courage to take a different path in life. Often, the choices one makes at specific metaphorical cross-roads, make all the difference, especially if one takes the “less traveled” path, rather than the common and “fair” path. In Sandra’s case, the ability to take an alternative route, and follow her heart, makes a big difference. She chooses emotional wellbeing over financial security.
Age cartoonist and writer Michael Leunig, says “if we don’t make for ourselves some small hand-crafted peculiarity it will certainly be provided by fate in due course.”
Our identity is always changing and developing: Age cartoonist, Michael Leunig states, “any life lived well enough is nothing else but ongoing rehabilitation.” (214)
In the 1950s US psychologist Harry Harlow found when infant rhesus monkeys were taken from their mothers during key nurturing phases they were permanently emotionally damaged. This supported the theory that the early days of childhood set the path for life.
Retired Detective Senior Sergeant Chris O’Conner says abused kids often feel betrayed by all authority figures. “Some are so emotionally affected they are reticent to speak while others are angry and want their day in court.”
Prisons are full of inmates from dysfunctional homes where violence is normalised and dishonesty is a family tradition. (John Silvester, 20/6/2015).
An interview on Lateline with Andrew Solomon, Yale professor and author of “Far from the Tree: parents, children and the search for identity”.
ANDREW SOLOMON: One of the central ideas of the book is that there are many kinds of identity which are hereditary, which I called “vertical identities.” So your ethnicity, your nationality, your language, frequently your religion. And even if those identities are difficult, nobody is trying to cure them. We’re only trying to cure a society that enacts prejudice toward those people.
But there are other kinds of identities that emerge in which a child has a central defining characteristic completely different from anything his parents have dealt with before. And I call those “horizontal identities” because they’re learned from a peer group rather than from parents.
And those horizontal identities, it seemed to me, had a great deal in common.
So I went out to work among the deaf, to write an article almost 20 years ago for the ‘Times’ magazine. And I discovered that deafness is a culture. It’s also a disability in many ways but it is a culture. It is a culture united around people’s shared use of sign language and that most deaf children are born to hearing parents, that those hearing parents try to incorporate them into what they see as the mainstream and that those deaf individuals then discover a sense of identity when they discover deaf culture in adolescence or thereafter.
And I thought it was so similar to my experience as a gay person who felt as though I was strange and aberrant and broken and then found a world of people who were like me and thought, “Oh, this could be okay.” And in the same sense I saw it over and over again with these other characteristics.
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