{seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/XdYNrfPeZH_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”Person and Persona ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/YfQRRVzVNK”}}}
The word "Person" comes from "Persona" (latin) and "Persona" meaning mask, a mask that we have to wear sometimes in society. Sometimes we have to be political, we have to use this persona.
The question is: Who are you? Who is your persona? Who do you think you are and what you are forced to do to behave so you can survive in the society.
Love
Paulo
{ 204 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
Next Comments →
A person cannot see himself except through the mirror – his reflection – a presona – a mask. I used to think we began as a round ball, which acquired facets due to interactions with the world(people, places,things) & became multifaceted as a result of such interactions, however I am beginning to believe we return to the round ball as we fully integrate ourselves to the ONE. When we are one with God, we no longer wear masks; which would then make the persona a transitional(necessary?) phase towards enlightenment.
don’t we have a different persona every day?
All personas are part of me. They do not exist in anyone else in the same form and combination of personas, that can be called out when needed (sometimes even when not ;). It is all together the unique thing of being me.
Being me; i need my masks of: business woman, trust worthy, honest, housewife, friend, daughter, strenght, temptress, solution finder, lady, thinker, animal rights protector, traveler, educated gril, competitor, diva, good spirit, brave adventurer, helper, rudeness, wise woman…
masks of choice and a masks of necessity.
I am who I am… but I cannot be the same person to any one person…. I must constantly change my persona to meet the needs, situation, or person with whom I am sharing a moment. I cannot be a mother to my boss, a sister to my mother and a lover to a women, therefore I believe that I have a million persona’s of my one self. I do not comprise my religion, my values or my morals when I change my persona, but I do change the way in which I express, deliver and present them. I must always consider my audience and the effect I may have on those around me. I love the person I am, but I do not live alone, and to ensure that I respect and bring together those I love, I must always be the right me at the right time.
“I’m a man and my name is Anakin”)
Undertaking a minimum of effort for this and give people the opportunity to realize themselves … sufficiently compliant and satisfied with little. And nothing I can do about it, because this world I am not interested in a greater degree.
Hello,Paulo. I live in Vladivostok (Russia). And
I am masked expensive prostitute, though it – not mine. I do not wish to sell the caress and tenderness to unfamiliar men. And I do it to eat, put on beautifully (after all I the young nice girl). I the midwife. Also would like to work by a trade but so I will starve to death and never I will meet the worthy man.I dont know(((
Yours faithfully, Anna
You could liken the mass of people to a herd of dinosaurs plodding across a prairie. The herd simply eats, drinks and sleeps. Some perish, some are eaten, some live long and die of old age, but are replaced with younger dinosaurs, and so the herd marches on, without ever stopping to wonder if there is anything more to life. That´s our “persona”, which is what we shouldn´t be. But most people live this illusion throughout their entire lives. Sad…
MASQUARADE.
i have tried to be true to myself and people around me all my life,
but i also learned that if sometimes i didn’t put on this persona mask, i lose things.
and now i face myself who is behind a mask.
however i must say, at least we do know that we put on masks.
we are nothing stronger than a reed, but we make ourselves even more vulnerable by knowing the fact that we are weak.
dear paul,
what am i supposed to do on this planet. i mean it seems to me like i don´t find any place to fit in with my personality or do i even project myself as this person and getting therefore away from being the person i am supposed to be?
i was typing this exactly sentence a few minutes ago into google search and found your blog.
i think i started ten years ago of changing myself into the real myself i am, which is good and shows honest progress, but very sad on the other hand, because i also experiences that there is not much room for this kind of persons.
person or person?
i don´t want to wear a mask and being that persona people want me to be. the world we know is a place that forces humans to pretend to be someone that we do not are and don´t want to be sometimes but we have to compromise and arrange somehow to get along with it.
it is wrong to live a live with false pretenses to gain profit and making ourself looking better than we really are because that forces others to do so too like in a chain-reaction.
the exception we have to make to live our lifes in societies is, to be honest with our selfs to be able to be honest with others.
it is easy to lie to get others to like us as we would like our selfs and if we live that lie long enough we don´t requested it anymore and arrange with it until we don´t even know the difference.
i need time of of european dominated life and want to go to quite places and do honest work to help others. and that is what i do.
there is so much more to say but i stop right there and wish you and all the others best luck for good decisions and a good life.
kind regards
A persona is extremely useful because it can help deflect those people we don’t want to associate with and attract those whom we feel will add to our lives. It becomes a debilitating lie when it makes intimacy with other people virtually impossible. Usually a persona develops during high school and solidifies until something happens that necessitates its reevaluation. Few are so authentic that they can avoid reevaluating their personas altogether.
I am currently struggling with replacing my persona and striving to become a real person. It’s tiring to wear masks all the time, even if it seems safer to do so.
A mask…
We use it to hide ourselves from others beacuse were afraid that they’ll know who we really are.
And sometimes we mask ourselves because even we don’t even know who we really are yet.
I still don’t know what my persona is but I think it’ll come to me sooner or later.
-Angeline
remove your mask ! {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/eSyGBziazv_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”remove your mask ! ”}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/hXXv9XJLM2″}}}
Thank you for asking. I just wrote down a reply. It’s too long to be posted in here, but I like contemplating on who I am so I enjoyed this little exercise.
Very shortly put, I believe we are spiritual beings, who are trying to get into terms with their human bodies and its limitations life after another. Or rather than trying to ‘get into terms with’, which would require accepting the limitations, we are trying to brake free of them, we are trying to be as much of our higher selves as we can through our human bodies, or possibly some other type of bodies in different planes. It’s all very fascinating and I’m keen to learn more.
Masks?
We use masks as a shield. Behind the shield we are free to learn techniques that allow us to live without the shield. We also use them as tools for learning. But while we learn through them they also make our learning process slower than what it would be with out using them. But I suppose we are afraid of the pain it would cause to be bunched by life while uncovered. We are afraid we would not know how to respond to the bunch, because we wouldn’t have learned how to handle it yet. Taking a bunch uncovered would require trusting your instincts to handle the response. There would be no quarantee of anything.
Masks I use: silence, patience, ignorance, playing stupid, playing more clever than I am, being careless, being lazy, being busy, being pretty, being ugly… etc..
I read once ‘The Face you have at twenty God gave you, The Face you have at forty you have given yourself’, so does the mask (face) we wear mask our thoughts up to a point, only to be shown later as time takes it’s toll on our face and inevitably it reveals the good and bad thoughts we have had, is it then the true persona is revealed.
Talvez, o meu eu seja sensível, fraco e dependente. Mas quando coloco a máscara, é como se fosse a carapaça de uma tartaruga… mostra se forte, dura, escondendo os seus sentimentos de dor… Esta é a máscara que se encontra dentro de mim!
I had a conversation about a week ago with a person who knows me very well. I was about finding your true self, the conversation leading to the theory that the more you look for youre true self you realize that you will never find the true you at the end but you will find some more to look behind. In that case you will realize that the journey is actually the goal. Cause if there is something we all know for sure is that we all are seekers, otherwise we wouldn’t be on this forum.
Love
Na verdade gostaria de fazer uma pergunta. Não sei mexer direito, assim não encontrei onde deixar esta mensagem, saber inglês não importa, eu só queria saber mesmo, já que não conhecia o blog.. a paginal original é em inglês? Talvez eu seja ignorante com relação a isso, e para se criar blogs só mesmo em inglês (o que já seria um absurdo), mas eu gostaria mesmo de saber. A página original é em inglês? why? eles é quem deveriam traduzir a pagina, don’t you think?
Côrtes
Paulo
Esperava que, de alguma forma, pudesses me dizer. Acabei de ler O Mago e busquei na minha memória todos os ensinamentos que tirei dos livros que já li. Talvez este tenha sido o mais proveitoso não pela forma, mas pelo conteúdo.
E~stou te buscando, através do site, dos teus livros que já li e do teu exemplo de vida. Vida maluca, mas bem vivida. Estou também me buscando para, quem sabe um dia, poder responder essa tua pergunta. Quem sou eu e quem é minha persona.
Não tenho certeza de nenhuma das duas respostas.
Um sincero abraço.
Paola
After battleing cancer for the last 3 years I’ve found that you are who you need to be. If it calls for bravery, you are brave. If it calls for sadness then you are sad.
You do what you have to do..
It can be the ultimate in selflessness and selfishness at the same time.
In a Kafka-esque way, you stand at the gate, waiting on the gatekeepr and you might never get in; but at least it’s your door.
thank you for the simple but profound question.
I think you could never see who you are unless you see others.
You can see who you think you are or who you want to be.
But you can never see your true self without relating and referring to others.
Persona-the mask,is probably what you need in order to go through this journey of finding oneself amongst other people.
The persona you create or placed upon you by environment/upbringings/culture etc. is probably a guide in finding the person inside you,though it could make things more confusing at times.
In Japanese, the character “person” or “people” is made from 2 lines coming together almost as though they are leaning against one another or maybe dancing the tango:). It can also look like a single person walking.
The two character that form the word “human being” consist from this character “person/people” and the character “between”.
You can’t be a “person” on your own. We are meant to live amongst(between) other people where we grow “persona” in various situations and exchange this. This is where we become a “person”, where we can learn to see who we are for the first time.
My writing abilities are not the best, but these are my thoughts.
Dear Paolo, and everyone else who reads,
this is a question that is coming back to me every now and then since many years now,
as i am a teacher i saw myself often forced to behave in a creatain way, or dress in a ceratain way, talk and behave in a certain way… and this is something my soul doesn`t want me do much longer.
i am almost fed up with making myself believe that i have to do this or that. but it`s all not really the truth. the truth behind things is not what he got educated to be like, or to act like, the truth is behind all of that. the truth lies within a long forgotten knowledge, that each soul knew already before we got tought how to behave and got made forgotten about who we truly are.
but it doesn`t matter, we can go back to there, i just hope i will have the streght and the courage not to fall back into so called security, which infact isn`t one, because when the soul cries, we lose our life. once we can follow what`s deep inside ourselves, then we`re truly saved
love, e.
I don’t think I wear a mask. What is inside me is a vessel of a variety of emotions and responses that enter and leave.
Concerning what I manifest of my thoughts, I again think my responses are natural and true. It is easy to pick out the negative comments and believe because I hold them back I am not being truthful. But they are one of many that are filtering through my mind, (both negative and positive). I think that what we put out is filtered down to what is necessary at the time. To be what is implied as truthful by reiterating everything would be information overload. Inside I think we are nothing. Outside we are everything.
Alafia Paulo,
The thing about ‘Persona’ is, because it has been given a written meaning, it becomes limited. On the surface, it seems black/white i.e. mask/no mask. In reality, it is so much more. First, most humans wear several masks. Even if they don’t realize it, they do. Since we are operating in a few worlds (physical, metaphysical, cognitive, spiritual), the persona we must bring to each has the potential to morph and shift to accommodate the lessons we must gather on the journey.
We are who we are guided to be if we are conscious (some may even say ‘enlightened’) people. Personally, I’ve experienced many personas, those of Orisa, Egungun, and some of my own choosing in situ. So, persona is the beautiful baby of our relationship matrix with the Universe.
Blessings to your work.
We all have many personas.. we are many things all the time. Who Am I? I don’t know. Do you? But I believe we have an essence. This essence is part of the “all thing”. Perhaps that’s the reason why we are all these things..because in truth we are all connected.
People strive to have more solid, more secure masks to hide their person that’s lacking strenght, beauty etc. Instead they should be working with their nature to surpass insecurity and drop the masks that are already there.
Start to be, not pretend. Be egoistic, be crazy, be angry, be polite, be happy, be nice, be anything you are, but don’t lie to yourself about what you should be. That way you’ll find that world inside the world you belong to. Good luck!
Dear Dano MacNamarrah
I just want to thank you for sharing your personal story with us. Being true to yourself, you are never going to go insane! Please don’t pay too much attention to those mental health diagnosis; i.e. bipolar or schizo affective disorder.
In a thesis, I proved how the label ‘behavior problems’ which teachers often put on students, could be replaced by ‘students with low school interest’. Do you see how different the two diagnosis are? The first put the blame on the students. The second is a relational explanation, where we need to hold the school responsible too, for creating students with high school interest. In the USA I see a lot of parents who have their children diagnosed and medicated, kind of to make themselves look better, why they don’t succeed as parents.
Dano, all my best wishes for your health and for your success as an artist. One day, I hope to go back to Aaron Isles, Inish Thiar, where I believe a close friend of mine, still lives. May be I see you there ;)
Heart
Dear Avantika,
Just because you put the title on your…poem: Cyprian Deception and as I am a Cypriot, I feel obliged to ask you to explain to us the meaning of it.
There are also some words, that I could not find in the ..Oxford Dictionary, so that I and all of us , be able to understand it and be able to appreciate it or comment on it.
LOVE,
THELMA
Hallo
I think I am always true to myselv, I do not settle for halfgood things, relationship, job or so, I am not affraid to challenge myself, eventhow it is very hard sometimes ( as hard as I allow it to be, life trows some punches, but I do not have to recive them all). I am a mother of 3, so there are some responsabillities I have to take care of, obey the written rules, but I am always questioning myself why I do the things I do, do I really want to do this for myselv, or is it to please others?! I am full of love,emotional, live intense every moment, I wonder about things others don’t normally, scarry sometimes for others, so the biggest mask I have to wear is to hold back with being so emotional. We are who we want to be, we do not have to always be a reflection of the society we live in, on the contrary, it should be challanged every time we find uncomfort in it, and not just obey.
love
Marie
its funny tat u shud post this question on yr blog this week . Co z i had spent the whole of last observing people and myself and the masks that each of us wear …. and came out with a poem , penning wat i thought !!!!
Cyprian Deception …….
Each day I adorn myself with a cogent mask ,
disguising my intent ,my relentless plight .
I paint my contused lips with robust red ,
clamouring it with fake passion and sensuality ,defied .
I heave charcoals over my crowning lids,
shadowing them into sublime droops of mystery .
I conceal my face with hues of familiarity ,
camouflaging the inexplicable scars of testing times.
I open my sullen blinds with a magic wand ,
bringing modest surprise in those eyes ,so worn with shock .
I brush rosy enamour into my hollows ,
decieving you of a towering flush, in a face so lifeless.
I’m so sorry, I am not following people’s post here.
I just wanted to thank you for The Pilgrimage. I just finished it tonight and made a post about it in my blog.
Thank you Senior Paulo.
This is indeed a thought provoking question. One which may be answered, unintentionally, untruthfully. Because for most of us, to speak of the person within, is a relatively new experience. Self-discovery is like peeling back the layers from an onion. It makes one’s eyes bleed and nose run, unless one chills the onion first. And in cooling the onion, one loses the true bite, flavour and scent of the interior within.
I am forty-two years old. I’m a single woman, visual artist, mentally ill and a recovering alcoholic. All of these I have embraced since I left home at sixteen, except the “recovering” part, which has only been true for four years. My mental diagnoses of Bipolar II with Borderline tendencies, schitzo-affective disorders has put a label on my behavior and visions. But, as I’ve learned from a recent letter from my father, explaining why he never wants to see me again:
“Ever since you were a young child, you have gone out of your way to be provocative, irritating and enraging….I’m bourgious and you are bohemian, nothing wrong in that. We all have to get through the day.”
The masks I held to my face when I was younger, was to curb myself, to try to meet my parents’ approval. Distraught from sexual abuse by a relative when I was (I found out later my age) three, I was neurotic and needy. My father was emotionally unavailable; my mother, starting her journey into alcoholism, told us that if we met a man half as good as our father, we’d be lucky.
Growing up impoverished in Ireland, my father went to England to seek his fortune. He made it. We moved to Europe and then to the States. He was the first CEO of a major bank without schooling; they scrapped that requirement. I left for Philadelphia College of Art my Junior year of High School, at sixteen, because they were moving to Buffalo.
On reflection, I believe my major transgression happened during a visit home from college. My father offered a trust fund of $250,000 to my sister and me. He stated that we would have a tough time as artists, so he wanted to support our efforts. (My sister had just changed her major from pre-law/business to the arts). It only took me a moment to turn him down. I said that as he’d had to earn his own way, whilst it was a generous offer, I should do the same.
I don’t believe, now, that it was an answer that made him proud. I won’t bore you with the details, but as much as I tried to dress up for home visits, the results were bad. My sickness had me coming home one Christmas with a beautiful wig to cover my shaved head and the bandages on my wrists were explained as “sprains”.
I’ve spent the last eight or nine years in and out of mental hospitals. My average stay is two months. I live with a best friend of mine from college, who has saved my life in countless ways. She has forced me to get out of bed for an hour each day. She has watched the same movie that I chose four or five times, because the ECT wiped my memory clean of 2000 to 2003, with other spots of blankness.
My therapist, psychiatrist and she have helped me, beyond the pale. Because of them, I’m able to talk about myself, without fear. When I’m suicidaly depressed, I feel contaigeous. For a couple of decades, I hid the depression within, barely functioning. My whole life was a mess, but I put on my mask to work. I used alcohol and drugs to try and fix a problem that I had no name for.
Now, life is a little easier. Everyone in my neighbourhood has seen me running around in hospital gowns after the ECT. People are amazed at how well I’m functioning right now. If I don’t remember some one’s name, I tell them. I have nothing to hide, except my messy room! But, even though I tell the truth in almost every situation, I have a mask.
My blog is written under a nom-de-plume. I’m not ashamed of myself, my writing or my life. But, as my estranged sister, who grew tired of me being ill and my father apparently is with her on that, I don’t want them to find my tiny blog. Not because I care about their opinions (I still hurt), but because my mother loves me and I do not wish to hurt her.
So, I have taken the name of my father’s grandmother, an exile from the Aaron Isles, who bore a girl out of wedlock to Francis, a “Great Thinker” of Ireland, portrayed in the book “Two Flamboyant Fathers” by Nicolette Devas. Francis’ daughter Caitlin married Dylan Thomas. The family was viewed as one of the original bohemians. My grandmother was held up as a “product of sin” in the Catholic School. She had my father, divorced and had two other sons by another man. They divorced also. Amazing, in Ireland.
But, I found out later from his step-father’s wife, that my father who allowed no feelings expressed in his house, hated his mother and his father, because he felt that they’d failed him. I’d go on, but this is not the place.
In fact, I apologize for having rambled so. Probably I could have said that I am honest in all my affairs, barring my blog. I’m proud of it, but I’m sad that I cannot share it with my mother.
Adoraria comentar porém não entendo bolhufas do que vocês estão falando.Sou de Joinville SC,Brasil e adoro o Paulo Coelho que é brasileiro como eu.Queria dizer que gostaria que tivese um blog de preferência em português para que eu possa participar.Pois adoro este escritor.
Obrigada pela o oportunidade e um beijo a todos!!!!!!!!!!!!
The first part of the question – who is my persona – seemed to be impossible to answer: my persona depends on the company, the situation, and my own state of mind. But on closer inspection, I realised that there is an underlying theme for different aspects (facets, haha) of them (or me); my own personal mask would be that of stoicism and self-confidence. These are my weapons of survival in the society.
All my life, I have learned that to show my feelings openly is unacceptable, embarrassing and inconvenient, and therefore nothing must phase me – be it good or bad. I’m an emotional person by nature, and this is one mask that’s very hard to remove, and a very sticky habit to unlearn. I suppose it’s also connected to the mask of self-confidence. All these emotions leave me feeling very vulnerable, so in order to survive, I must appear strong.
It occurs to me that these masks can be both good and bad – sometimes acting as if you are strong or confident or funny or beautiful can make you believe in it yourself, thus changing you from the inside. Sometimes the mask is suffocating the natural growth under it. There’s some food for thought… Thank you.
I am pure spirit. An egoless energetic being. A (wo)manifestation of vibrational happenstance. My persona is my ego and the masks I wear are the roles I choose to play.
I find it interesting that when I’m able to “be” empathic and egoless, as a mother, I am not playing a role or wearing a mask, as I embody a non-ego logical perspective that allows for others to recognize theirself. The “self” being an integration of the aforementioned aspects of consciousness. …
Peace,
Steph
I believe we all have a persona which has the name we are baptised with. Life is about finding out what lies behind the name and personality which has been moulded around us during our lives.
When you are alone, relax in a chair, and call our your name, then repeat several times. Doing this you discover that the name that you are calling is not you, but something that people use to describe you. If you didn’t have a name (or persona), or if no one had a name what would we be?
I think a lot of barriers would come down, and we would realize that we are souls interacting with each other, hopefully in a caring and respectful manner.
Hi Paulo, In do not do why your question remand me of Descartes. Descartes who gave the sentence “cogito, ergo sum”. With or without mask we are who we are, thinking or not.
I belive that everybody has tried to put a mask depending of their situation.
Hope you mean our inner mask, because beauty comes from inside.
Ugly or beautiful, on our last day God will lend all of us grace.
Adore your books, read them in 5 different languages.
Continue writing!!!!
Karin
An interesting angle on the eternal quest for self is an exercise in accountability. This exercise takes a fair amount of discipline, and like Santiago in the Alchemist, a willingness to cross into another world to discover who we are. It seems rather prosaic, but this is how it works: take a small notebook, and every time a decision is made, write down why that path was chosen over others. Try this tedious exercise for a week, and the result will be a revelation insofar as it will show a clear pattern of behavior–if our actions are for ourselves or others, our priorities, our prejudices etc. None of act in a vacuum, and discernment can equal growth.
There’s one body, one heart, with many personalities – driven by…feelings.
Stimulated by the outside world but guided by..the inner one.
No matter how trivial things can be, the reaction, the choice comes from the heart.
The heart is the engine of my life; it either pushes me or pull me out, makes me smile or cry, opens my arms or hide me from the world, makes me want to dance all night, or walk endlessly in the park.
Is happy or sad, crazy or quiet, and always..full of love, even if there’s nothing to be happy about.
But there’s always…Someone…I can feel the presence of..in my heart. God.
love
Agnieszka
Excelent question, is something that surrounds my mind in the last days, who I´m and who I´m to the others, there are two persons, but definitly I don´t like the person who have to be to the others, so my realy I is loosing power and sometimes I think that it´s dying, becouse I´m sure that If I show me such as I am would be refused or criticized irremediablemente, sometimes we have to show us as something that we don´t are to be accepted, but in a lot of occasions practise so much this that fall in that we forget the true human being that we are.
That was an interesting question! My religious lineage teaches me that the quest for your persona begins with introspecting into the real nature of the Self. During that journey, one makes startling discoveries about oneself. Often, the mind refuses to dwell on many factors that lead to clearly unpleasant revelations about oneself. How well we deceive ourselves!
Regarding my real persona, I would prefer to shun most people, as I have little in common with them. I do not like their vacuous conversation, their preoccupation with things that seem trifling to me. I have to, however, present a façade, a persona, as you put it, in order that I seem acceptable. Why do I need to be accepted? At the office I cannot live in isolation, I need to interact because ‘team-work’ is important. In my private life, I maintain contact with people I would prefer to shy away from because I need their assistance. So, I pretend, make compromises which almost always leave a bad taste in my mouth.
There’s a book of an Italian writer, Pirandello, “Uno, nessuno e centomila” (One, none and hundred thousand – I think this is the translation). Pirandello says that we think we are one, but in the reality we are none while the others sees us as hundred thousand, and this is because of our masks. It’s hard to believe that there’s someone which doesn’t wear a mask, being himself. And if there’s one I’d like to know if he honestly know himself so well and can live in a society without behaving as the society requests – so using masks.
(sorry for my imprecise English)
Yours Irina
I have been thinking about that a bit… Our “selves” vs. Persona. I should think it funny that I have come back to “The Little Prince” in which the Pilot says he looked for a person that would understand his picture of the serpent who had eaten an elephant. But does having Persona mean that we’re hypocritical? Or can Persona have some features of our true selves but “bite it’s tongue” from time to time? And isn’t it connected to the “famous” empathy? Would that mean that we should choose between being ourselves or being empathic? (Dear, it seems questions never end) I wish I could finally decide… (Or am I wrong?)
I don’t know who I am yet. My persona would suggest I’m incredibly nervous, despite my best efforts.
Anoushka Hi
u have added something interesting here, as thelema has quoated, in the beginning there was just sound, study of origin of languages is a very interesting subject. every milestone on then way will lead on to finally that one primordial sound, call it …… those who know say that still there is only sound. consiousness is at the bottom ( of our being ) next is sound, all expereinces are interpreted as sounds, even those comming from other senses. that sound is not the physical sound caught by our ears but something like – suppose u see a beautiful sight, inwardly u say /feel oh! what a beautiful sight.
love
aditya
LUCE
if u are reading this, i need some help from u. I have not reda much of Kahlil Gibran, only his prohet and madman, recently i bought a volume of his collected works. but most of his ‘creation’ though soul strirring is very dark, it appears although the chap was very close to misery and he had his moments of exhaltations, redaing him made me sad, what is your expereince about KG.
love
aditya
I wear many masks Nina Parks and Lady Bird SF, I have many AKA’s depending on the people and the period of time that it relates to. Sometime fuctioning under a different person helps you to accoplish the goals that you have for your life that would other wise be lost if you did them under your primary persona ( I am aware that some people posses a few archetypes and others many.)
I find that for me I need many masks because like you said when you are amoungst certain people you have to play the politician….the only warning is that you need to remember that contiuously work on your true self… recently I wrote a poem as a check in to who and where I am at this point in my life… I’m sure it will change in time.
I am…
I am tired
I am alone
I am lost
I am on my own
I am in the moment
I am lost in space
I am loosing control
I am in the race
I am the time I spend dedicated to what I love
I am a force to be reckoned with, I wear no gloves
I am that heart that beats inside of my chest
I am my dreams when I lay my head down to rest
I am trouble and the solution neatly packaged all together
I am strength
I am distruction
I am revolution
I am,that,I am
and I am not that one
I am what I’ve always wanted to be and I am what I most feared
I am a child
I am a victim
I am a theif
I am a prostitute
I am a Lover
I am a sister
I am a brother
I am my mother and my father
I am the mediator
I am nothing
I am everything
I am a lock
I am the key
I am a beast and I will never stop
I am my mistakes I am my lessons learned
I am a new person reborn as a bird
I am gossip
I am an addict
I am at times blind and problematic
I am a preistess
I am a Goddess
I am a Alchemist
I am honest
I am a liar
I am a storyteller
I am a healer
I am the bridge that links us all together
I am…I am a women… I am… I am man… I am..
I am the balance… I am…
Re-reading your question and other answers. I realize that too many of the warm bodies that are part of my life aren’t worth my truth. Sadly I spend most of my day at a job. I would not by choice to deal with these humans or the job. I simply need the money to pay bills and take care of my children.
Secondary no matter how honesty/truthful//real you or I are. Others will see what they want to see. They will believe want they choose belief about you.
I do believe it important that we understand who we are. And there are times were we believe we are one thing when in fact we are not. I know that is true of me. When I was 23 I volunteers as a peace keeper in Beirut. My view of the world and myself was radically changed. In my life I had other experiences that challenged how I viewed the world and myself. I have to confess that failed each test. The marine/wrestler/martial artist in me says you can only learn taking on a challenge that you can not win/defeat. If giving up is the lesson, it not a lesson I want to learn. So maybe there are truths in me I am still un-willing to learn
Noppie
A day late and a dollar short. For me it is very difficult to acknowledge different aspects of me. However, I am often amazed at how others view me as a person. I have noticed that one group of my friends my respect me for one trait. While another group or individuals dislike me for the same trait. Sometimes I have to different with different groups. At this stage in my life I do see it as problem but rather as a tool.
Noppie
Dear Paul from Austria, thank you for your warm words concerning my comment. It’s really encouraging, because it was my first post at Paulo’s blog. I’m glad my thoughts can be a delight experience for their readers. I’ve been acquainted with some of your comments Paul and I find them quite familiar. Our legend could be far more tough to realize without the mutual support…
Thanks a lot all of you, who is trying to foster your spirit, sharing the opinions, ideas and hesitations, helping this way each other.
I’d like to mention a little bit more about my perception of the basic human being question. WHO AM I? Do we really understand the meaning of those words? If not, is it possible then to give whenever the right answer?
All of us can perceive this question in different aspects. Some can go around the religion the rest around tradition, biology or nature….
In my opinion people exaggerated the conception of this obvious question. The answer should be well known to everybody.
WE ALL ARE THE CREATION OF LOVE!
There is nothing what can bother us in that point. It’s the unquestionable truth.
The question number one of our life should be:
What is MY way to express the love which created me?
You’re not gonna experience the fulfilment in your life without reviving this love.
I wish then good luck to all of us who are or will be following this understanding of our existence.
Loves
Anna
Querido Paulo:
De Miércoles a Domingo soy mesero en un California Pizza Kitchen por las mañanas y en un restaurante Olive Garden por las noches, donde por cierto, canto de vez en cuando un aria de ópera para recibir mejor propina. Lo curioso es que no soy Abogado, profesión que abandoné en México sólo para emprender el viaje del conocimiento de quien está detrás de la máscara. Tampoco soy un mesero. Ni cantante de profesión. Aunque me he valido de todos los recursos y de todas mis habilidades para sobrevivir en esta sociedad. A veces me sorprendo de mí mismo, de los recursos que utilizo para sorprender a los demás, he dibujado en mi máscara un color agradable a la vista,y sabes Paulo? al final del día, en el silencio de mi habitación, reconozco quien soy cuando enciendo el oredenador y la computadora me exige escribir otro párrafo. Me he prometido tantas veces terminar lo que comienzo de una vez por todas, lo haré con las letras que son en realidad el reflejo de quien verdaderamente soy. Letras. Apenas comienzo a escribir y libero mi alma de frustración. Siempre he querido ser escritor.
¡Gracias por obsequiarme con tu pregunta, una respuesta para mi alma!
Saludos desde Oregon
Paco Pérez Rivera
P. D. Lunes y Martes debo comportarme como un buen esposo, un gran amante de la filosofía y de mi gato Platón.
← Previous Comments
Next Comments →