Am I Important?

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The Matrix had it wrong. You are part of the switching circuitry. Roughly speaking, a person builds up an idealized image of himself because he cannot tolerate himself as he actually is.

I Am the Very Important Longread Everyone is Talking About

The image apparently counteracts this calamity; but having placed himself on a pedestal, he can tolerate his real self still less and starts to rage against it, to despise himself and to chafe under the yoke of his own unattainable demands upon himself. He wavers then between self-adoration and self-contempt, between his idealized image and his despised image, with no solid middle ground to fall back on. There is, to mention only one other factor, the alienation from self that robs a person of his motor force. He can still be a good worker, he may even be able to make a considerable effort when put under external pressure, but he collapses when left to his own resources.

This does not only mean that he cannot do anything constructive or enjoyable with his free time; it means nothing less than that all his creative forces may go to waste. When a person feels that he has not been able to make sense of his own life, he tries to make sense of it in terms of the life of his children.

But one is bound to fail within oneself and for the children. The average person has a sensitivity toward his bodily processes; he notices changes, or even small amounts of pain; this kind of bodily sensitivity is relatively easy to experience because most persons have an image of how it feels to be well. The same sensitivity toward one's mental processes is much more difficult, because many people have never known a person who functions optimally.

They take the psychic functioning of their parents and relatives, or of the social group they have been born into, as the norm, and as long as they do not differ from these they feel normal and without interest in observing anything. There are many people, for instance, who have never seen a loving person, or a person with integrity, or courage, or concentration.

By this I do not mean that a person may not change his opinions, but that his basic motivations remain the same; that, for instance, his respect for life and human dignity is part of himself, not subject to change. In the same sense we have faith in ourselves. We are aware of the existence of a self, of a core in our personality which is unchangeable and which persists throughout out life in spite of varying circumstances, and regardless of certain changes in opinions and feelings.

It is this core which is the reality behind the word "I," and on which our conviction of our own identity is based. Unless we have faith in the persistence of our self, our feelings of identity is threatened and we become dependent on other people whose approval then becomes the basis for our feeling of identity.

Only the person who has faith in himself is able to the be faithful to others, because only he can be sure then he will be the same at a future time as he is today and, therefor, that he will feel and act as he now expects to. Faith in oneself is a condition of our ability to promise, and since, as Nietzsche said, man can be defined by his capacity to promise, faith is one of the conditions of human existence.

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What matters in relation to love is the faith in one's own love; in its ability to produce love in others, and in its reliability. Only when the right position in mosaic is found, when every unique "I" fits into their unique places endless beauty can be seen. Only when every "I" finds its unique timing the greatest symphony of life can be heard.

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I Am the Most Important Person You Know

Here is an anecdote about a very small and seemingly irrelevant occurrence that happened way back in like, I just wanted to give you a little taste of the storytelling to come! Probably the best thing about me is that I combine in-depth political research, investigations into extremely confusing litigation procedures within a large but boring organization, lots of charts about data or some shit, and one really long section about how all of this affects the economy. Look around your office. Everyone else has read me already. See those people over there by the shitty little coffee maker?

One of them is super important. I bet the other one is making a great impression on the important one. February 16, Language: Be the first to review this item Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

I Am the Most Important Person You Know

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