Be a self, not yourself.

‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:39) How can I love my neighbour as I love myself? I’m far cooler than her!

But seriously. We are quick to demonize Narcissus for having fallen in love with himself, but are we not as guilty as he is? We are all narcissists, whether we acknowledge it or not. We love ourselves every time we proclaim our individuality.

This is the era of individualism, and Junod feels that this has been “the most precious conquest of humanity”. We have rights, we have freedom, we have choices, what could ever go wrong.

Glad you asked!

Individuality is a good thing. But us human beings, as always, have a tendency to take “good” things and turn their meaning around. As we begin to practice individuality, we forget to respect other people’s individuality as well. And then we reach the ambiguous divide between my freedom and my neighbour’s. We want to cross it, because we’re free to do so, but we can’t, because it’s their freedom we’ll be limiting. The paradox of existing!

It’s not hard to understand why Marx felt strongly about Communism. Martin Luther King Jr. states that “an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity”, and methinks he puts it pretty well.

Being yourself is good. But perhaps this is not about you. Or me. It’s about the fact that you exist. And, most importantly, you exist within a community. We are, no matter how hard we try to deny, social beings. We survive through social interaction. I cannot develop my fullest potential by myself. So, perhaps eliminating the ‘my’ in the word would help me break free from these “narrow confines of my individualistic concerns”.

Being an individual, these days, has taken on a negative connotation. It’s something you almost have to impose on others. You show how unique you are by adopting the non-conformist position. But, sometimes, the majority is right, and we fail to see this, because we simply detest being associated with the “majority”. We want to stand out, be different, be idolized as the free thinkers that we can possibly become.

Yet all that is foolishness. Our individualism is costing the whole of humanity.

The 19-year-old self that inhabits this body  hopes that, one day, we will push aside the selfishness of being, and realize that, maybe, being a self is great in itself.

Perhaps that is the real challenge in loving my neighbor as I love myself.  When I come to terms that I am a self, before myself, I will, then, be able to love another self…

[http://nimg.sulekha.com/others/original700/sheep-herd-2010-6-18-19-54-17.jpg]

On being naked

Photograph capturing Contemporary Dance: Benjamin Asriel, left, and Burr Johnson in choreographer John Jasperse’s “Fort Blossom revisited.” Andrea Mohin / The New York Times

What’s indecent about walking naked down the streets?

Apparently such thing is considered inappropriate, as it has the potential to harm the public in some way or another. But what is harmful about seeing someone else’s naked anatomy?

It’s not inappropriate when a kid runs to have a swim at the local pool wearing only his underwear, so why would it be considered inappropriate  and even an offense to the law if an older woman did such a thing?

Earlier on, during a brief debate, I was hit by the realization that most of my life I have spent clothed.

The average human being only gets naked when showering, maybe when sleeping (depending) and during more intimate times.

The average human being is born naked, but will probably be buried well-dressed, inside a coffin.

It seems to me that the perception of nudity has changed throughout the times.

If we take a biblical approach, Adam and Eve are described as happy, naked and free beings. As soon as they got access to the tree of knowledge, they realized that they were naked and thus decided to cover themselves.

However, is nudity something to be ashamed of? Why should we, if we all share the same basic anatomy?

There should be nothing extremely extraordinary about my neighbor’s anatomy, so why would it be a shock if he came and sat next to me rocking a natural?

Today, nudity carries strong sexual connotations, and media doesn’t help, as its mission it to propagate this same conception. It makes me wonder, did the artists long ago who sculpted David thought of the human body as a tool for mere sexual contemplation?

Or did they see beauty in it? Or even perhaps the possibility of freedom?

Is it too naive to associate nakedness with freedom, the ultimate way in which we are able to fully liberate ourselves? If we accept this argument to be valid, then clothing ourselves everyday is slowly yet painfully destroying our very own instinctive nature to express ourselves.

Perhaps in a parallel brave new world, all embellishments will be striped away and people will be left with nothing but their bare naked bodies – that would be an interesting world indeed.

[http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2012-08/26/content_15706376.htm]