'There is a distinct purpose for having your story written down, because for two centuries people have been representing us in Australian literature!'

‘I’m using the coloniser’s language to write about what they’ve done to us!’ raves Anita Heiss, Aboriginal writer and novelist when asked why she - an Aboriginal writer – resorted to writing in English – the language of the colonizer!

She opines furthermore, on the USPs of Aboriginal writers and their distinctive writing style – and I quote from Anita Heiss herself –

For Aboriginal writers, writing is a form of catharsis, and as a means to make sure their voice has a place in Australian literature, as a means of having a political voice, in a country where we are still voiceless in the political system, where the arts is the only political platform we have, where literature remains a highly political tool!

ANITA HEISS

It’s not just sitting and staring at the window and write about every metaphor for butterfly etc. There is a distinct purpose for having your story written down, of having a political space in this country, of making sure that we have our own self-representation in this country, because obviously for two centuries people have been representing us in Australian literature!  Added, there are some distinct differences between style and language, motivation and content as to the contrastive frames of reference between the aboriginal and non-aboriginal styles of writing!

There’s such a huge difference between aboriginal stories on the page, and non-aboriginal stories on the page! When you read works of aboriginal writings, you will see that there’s very little difference between the spoken word and the written word, and literally, the conversational style or the oral form is just digested onto the page, whereas the non-aboriginal writing is edited to conform to a particular literary style! I prefer to read conversationally!

That’s Anita Heiss, Australian Aboriginal writer for us all!

Well, while doing some research on Aboriginal writing, I personally chanced upon a precious read that was edited by Anita Heiss, titled, Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia!

This book has a wonderful collection of thought-provoking essays that serves to enlighten our understanding on the Aborigines, coming as it does from very high-profile scholars in the field!

The diverse voices, the multifarious experiences and the myriad stories of more than fifty scholars in the field, reveal to a great extent, as Anita would say, ‘the impacts of invasion and colonisation – on language, on country, on ways of life, on how people are treated daily in the community, the education system, the workplace and in friendship groups.’

The very first chapter opens before us the readers, in the form of a very profound and enlightening conversation between two sisters Susie and Alice Anderson, who discuss among other things, what it means to be an Aborigine in Australia, with special focus on family life, school life and the ‘white’ society around them! 

Brings out to a tee, the angst and the dread, the pain and the embarrassment of being an Aborigine in their own land and soil!

Just a little excerpt from this chapter to bring out the angst of the Aborigine in a nutshell for y’all –

I quote –

Alice: There were a lot of things within our school, or just that small-town community environment, that I just wish would have been different. But probably still aren’t. There was a yearly scholarship for Indigenous students at our school, and my class coordinator would always try to get me to enter. One year I didn’t and at the end-of-year presentations they read out my entry from the previous year and gave it to me anyway. I was so angry and some people in my year made me feel shit for accepting it because I ‘wasn’t really Aboriginal’. There was another time the health teacher addressed me in front of the entire class about personal experiences with alcoholism, since I was Aboriginal. I told her she was a bitch and I got suspended.

I spent a lot of high school, and my time living in Horsham, feeling angry and frustrated and denied. I never once felt ashamed of who I was. I felt displaced. White people didn’t accept me as black, and I felt like only my family knew me as black. Sorry to spew all of my pent-up high school frustrations into one long-winded reply. But there’s one more thing I remember.

My Year 12 Studio Arts teacher was one of the only ones I liked at my school. She actually talked to us as people. We were studying Tracey Moffatt and she was reading aloud from a pretty outdated-looking textbook. Out loud rang the words ‘half-caste’. I remember my stomach dropping and that weird knot in your throat that forms but you can’t swallow. I expected to look up from my book to a sea of eyes staring at me in the classroom, but everyone was carrying on, unfazed. I went home and cried.

Susie: I’m so sorry you had that experience, my darling. There is a lot of power in those words ‘half-caste’ and ‘quadroon’. Those are terms that were used so carelessly but defined identities and the existence of our dad, uncles, aunties, grandmother. A lot of the time I have feelings about how my appearance, for some people, excludes me from my Aboriginal identity. It’s a battle that I have internally all the time. It’s social conditioning. I will never get the inclusion and membership to community simply from my looks. A lot of it is a white thing, sure, but that’s also the culture we were brought up in and that takes a lot of mental and emotional undoing.

Alice: Slightly off topic, really, but I just remembered that an Aboriginal woman used to hang around the Preston supermarket when I lived there, and she would ask people for money, but she used to call me ‘sis’, so I would give her coins even though I could not afford to, because it made me happy to be recognised for who I am, but also because I wanted to help her. Then I told my friends and they were like, ‘she probably just says that to everyone so they give her money’. So the next time I saw her I asked her who her mob was and she asked me back.

'We Live by Stories, we also Live in Them!'

On the Concept of 'Self' – 4 

There is an inner part of us, for ever obscured, for ever mysterious, which is most alive during the process of composition. And that inner part, that inner glow, is timeless, and it functions beyond time. It drinks from deep waters. It has the stillness and the dance and the radiance of firmament. 

In our next pitstop on this delightful literary sojourn into the ‘Self’, let’s hop on to the Künstlerroman from off the Bildungs!

Yess! Such kindred spirit with the Bildungsroman is its twin sister the Künstlerroman!

Ben Okri

While the Bildungsroman is often called the formation novel, the Künstlerroman, is called the artist novel as such!

Ben Okri is one such postmodern writer, who dabbles with gusto on the Künstlerroman! Although Ben today is widely known for his Booker-winning novel The Famished Road, there are other equally powerful texts from off the Pen of Ben, that have an equal or even a better claim to fame!

Indeed, most of his works are a candid celebration of the ‘personal space,’ a space that’s so sacred and a kinda sanctum sanctorum to the artist!

And this personal space, or downtime, has such a ‘hallowed be thy name’ to Ben! 

Two of his works, (guys shake the dust off your feet from off his Famished Road for once! And thank you for that!) ;-)

Well, yesss! Two of his works that deserve such huge credit have always been relegated to the periphery of his oeuvre whenever and wherever there’s been a discussion on his writing!

They happen to be on my personal favourites too!

The first is, The Landscapes Within, (later reworked and republished as Dangerous Love!)

And the second is, A Way of Being Free!

The Landscapes Within has so telling a title that speaks much for its lustre and its sheen!

Blame it on the utterly incapacitated government in Nigeria, in the postwar context, [the traumatic civil war that resulted in the death of more than a million Nigerians, and that forms the crux of many artistic renderings, including Achebe’s ‘Refugee Mother and Child’], now the people of the land – every one of them - feel so very claustrophobic on the outside, so sickening and so traumatized on the outside, much akin to helpless, clueless ‘trapped rats’, due much to the mounting social vices that only pile up by the dozen each passing day!

In this backdrop, the protagonist of the novel, Omovo feels so traumatized looking at the outside conditions around him, and hence seeks to find his secure solace in his beautifully created landscape ‘within’, where he becomes his own canvas! In other words, the artist himself becomes his own art!

To Omovo, this journey within, or the journey to the empowerment of his Self, is the most realistic journeys of all, in his society plagued by a host of evils and vices! Hence, his drawings and his paintings become for him a sort of default ‘refuge in the time of storm’ and more for the artist ‘within’ him!

From the first of the two, The Landscapes Within, let’s now quickly move on to the second one from Ben!

The second is, A Way of Being Free!

I guess, Ben’s claim to fame would sure hinge on the latter, A Way of Being Free!

If at all he deserves another hugey, biggy prize on him, like, say the Nobel, (yesss! It ain’t too tall a claim at that for such an impactful writer as Ben!) it would sure be for A Way of Being Free and I very much bet a dime on that!

Dear readers, I am of the firm and convinced opinion, that this read should be on the library stacks and on your personal book shelves as well!

I’m giving y’all some snippets for excerpts from off this marvelous read from the pen of Ben!

I sure guess this read would be a real motivational, therapeutic, inspirational read of sorts!

In short it would be a real ‘unputdownable’ book of sorts, for all passionate, lovely, committed literary minds out there!

This collection of twelve essays, A Way of Being Free is second only to Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands, which again, coincidentally, is divided into twelve sections! Bingo to that!

As the saying of yore goes,

We define ourselves to others through our stories!

'If you get the slightest chance to use a holiday to follow a passion, an odd curiosity, a book or a story, then you’re the luckiest person alive!'

“I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.”  | Mary Wollstonecraft

From Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer in the 1970s, let’s do a time travel of sorts, back in time to the 1790s, to have a glimpse into the life and works of Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley!

This, her much popular seminal nonfiction text titled, A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1791), argues for the equality of women – and their right to education as much as men do!

Although there were bouquets galore for her text, there were brickbats as well! Walpole even went to the extent of calling her ‘a hyena in petticoats’! Yet in spite of these stinging remarks, she has rightly established herself as the godmother of modern feminism!

Interestingly, it was in the very same year that Thomas Paine had also published his book titled, Rights of Man (1791), in which he argues that popular political revolution is permissible if the ruling establishment fails to safeguard the natural rights of its people.

It should also be noted that, Mary Wollstonecraft had already written a pamphlet on a similar title, A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790! This was a political pamphlet that strongly condemned aristocracy and advocated republicanism.

Well, Mary Wollstonecraft assumes significance to us all today, not only because she is a proto-feminist of sorts - pioneering the way for the liberation, freedom and the emancipation of women - but also because she’s been a guiding light and an inspiration for a generation of writers who adore her and respect her for her bold stance in favour of women’s education!

One such ardent enthusiast and fervent fan of Mary Wollstonecraft is present day celebrity writer and journalist, Bee Rowlatt!

She's much akin in temperament also, to Mary Wollstonecraft, who was a veteran traveller and a seasoned adventurer, who journeyed all the way up to Scandinavia accompanied only by her maid and baby daughter! Bee Rowlatt, a married mother of four, so inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft and her adventure-seeking way of life, decides to retrace her travels taking her own baby along! (Remember Jane Goodall!?)

It should be noted that, way back in the 18^th century, when Mary Wollstonecraft set out on her travels, the situation was such that, it was almost next to impossible for a woman to travel anywhere she wished to, without a male to accompany her and to protect her, in an age and clime that was known for its overt patriarchal dictates! But still, inspite of these insurmountable oddities around her, Mary Wollstonecraft managed to make it, and even went ahead and penned down her travels for posterity, in a book titled, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark! The book not only went on to become such a hot seller in a short matter of time, but also became a huge inspiration to a host of Romantic poets and writers!

Well, Bee with her baby boy follows in Mary’s footsteps, to seek and to find out the trigger that prompted Mary, the mommy, to move ahead on her travels, her musings on the people and places she had visited, to help gain a better knowledge and understanding of Mary Wollstonecraft and her relevance for us all today!

Bee in Norway with her baby boy!

Bee’s book is significantly titled, In Search of Mary and it’s subtitled, “The Mother of All Journeys”, and with a reason at that!

Bee, in an interview to her publishers, talks in detail about her first rendezvous with the works of Mary Wollstonecraft, when she was a student of literature! She had then taken to reading her book on her Scandinavian Travels and, right there, - she says, - she was hooked on the spot at the fearlessness and the gut instincts that acted the trigger for Mary to go ahead on her travels!

Following Mary Wollstonecraft’s footsteps to Norway, Bee is all praise and admiration for the Norwegians, calling them the freest people of Europe, and rates Norway today as among the fairest and best places to live! Although 216 years may have separated their journeys, Bee admits with a startled surprise that, they were both shocked by the price of Norwegian coffee!!!!! Ende deivameyyy!!!!!

On her favourite Mary Wollstonecraft quote, Bee says –

I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.

'Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies and crawls upon it...'

From the Feminine Mystique to the Female Eunuch!

17 February 1963 was a defining moment in the history of the feminist movement, in that, Betty Friedan’s path-breaking book The Feminine Mystique was born!

Betty Friedan

The Feminine Mystique rips apart the hitherto pervasive, stereotyped ideology of the ‘domesticity of women,’ which, according to Betty, was more of a dampener and a ‘stifling stereotype’ that prevented women from putting off their domestic roles and realizing their fullest potential, outside the confines of the home!

This notion of the woman as a homemaker, was, generated, perpetuated and disseminated by a host of conditioning, constructing and constraining factors in society, such as the coercive, menacing and intimidating advertising by the commercial media with vested interests, the impact of Freudian psychology on the societal psyche, the perpetuation of the feminine myth by a plethora of women’s magazines, and also by educational institutions that served to spread abroad with equal gusto, this myth of the domesticity of women full throttle!

In a startling survey that Betty did amongst her classmates in Smith College, she found out that, many of them felt quite a drudge at home, depressed and stifled at not being able to realize their real selves, and breathe real freedom, although they were supposedly enjoying the so-called ideal lives back at home with their family – husbands and children. By this curtailing of the woman’s prowess and progress, Betty opines that, society is in fact doing a great injustice to the ‘second sex’ and thereby losing out on a vast repertoire of immense talent and expertise, argues Betty!

To Betty, the feminine mystique then, is the perpetuation of a gendered stereotype that, a woman’s ideal role in her society is to be a dutiful housewife, and a loving mother, and there’s got to be nothing outside of these constraining roles! Therefore, the mystique is a superficial notion of femininity that promotes domesticity and housewifery as the domain proper of the woman, and any aspirations or ideals apart from this, would be a misnomer, as it would be going against these fixed, pre-ordained ‘roles’ expected of her!

If The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published in 1963, is such an eye-opener of sorts,

then

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer published in 1970 has been such a soul-shocker of sorts!

Germaine Greer

This book not only challenges the traditional, stereotyped roles of women in society, but also provided a wonderful framework for the feminist movement, in that, it empowered and encouraged women from across the world (like Nora does towards the climax in A Doll’s House), to question and to critique with vehement courage, the physicians, the psychiatrists, the priests, the media and the police who were beyond the ambit and the confines of being questioned, and who were in the most responsible for perpetuating the feminine stereotypes anywhere and everywhere they set foot!

By interrogating these patriarchal stereotypes that have resulted in a slew of epistemic violences unleashed on the ‘second sex’, Germaine Greer avers that, women could clearly see through the shallow and flippant postulates on which most of these patriarchal premises hinged upon!

Germaine Greer’s foreword to her 21^st Anniversary Edition of the The Female Eunuch contains within its mould, the germs of an enlightened inspirational of sorts!

And I quote –

What more could women want?

Freedom, that’s what.

Freedom from being the thing looked at rather than the person looking back. Freedom from self-consciousness. Freedom from the duty of sexual stimulation of jaded male appetite, for which no breast ever bulges hard enough and no leg is ever long enough. Freedom from the uncomfortable clothes that must be worn to titillate. Freedom from shoes that make us shorten our steps and push our buttocks out. Freedom from the ever-present juvenile pulchritude.

Freedom from the humiliating insults heaped on us by the top shelf of the newsagents; freedom from rape, whether it is by being undressed verbally by the men on the building site, spied on as we go about our daily business, stopped, propositioned or followed on the street, greasily teased by our male workmates, pawed by the boss, used sadistically or against our will by the men we love, or violently terrorized and beaten by a stranger, or a gang of strangers.

The freedom I pleaded for twenty years ago was freedom to be a person, with the dignity, integrity, nobility, passion, pride that constitute personhood. Freedom to run, shout, to talk loudly and sit with your knees apart. Freedom to know and love the earth and all that swims, lies and crawls upon it. Freedom to learn and freedom to teach. Freedom from fear, freedom from hunger, freedom of speech and freedom of belief. Most of the women in the world are still afraid, still hungry, still mute and loaded by religion with all kinds of fetters, masked, muzzled, mutilated and beaten.

This book of 400-odd pages, begins with an impressive foreword, followed by an impactful summary, that literally paraphrases in about 14 pages, what is contained within the book, in a nutshell!

Then, in five clearly outlined parts that so define the scope and ambit of the book, Germaine Greer elucidates on the five important aspects that have thus far affected, impacted and conditioned women across the ages! No spoilers at that, though!

Just giving y’all a sample slice from off the 'Summary,' that’s been such an impactful read for academia and the rest of the world, over the years! Well, she’s also interspersed this summary of hers, with three memorable quotes, reproduced below –

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will!"

On the Concept of Self – 3

We here continue from our previous pit-stop at Emile Durkheim, where he traces the growth of a human being from being an individual to becoming a person, when at the moment he starts playing out his social roles!

Indeed, the bildungsroman is an excellent prototype that bespeaks much to this concept of a sensitive soul seeking to venture out into the world in a quest that would help him/her to gain a better, fuller and an enriching understanding of his/her self! In this genre the main conflict happens usually between the protagonist or the main character and the society in which s/he dwells!

Also dubbed the ‘coming of age’ novel, this genre focuses on the maturity of the individual per se!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a classic example of this sort!

Jane’s initial days at Lowood Institution were such a harrowing time for her, as she couldn’t quite fit in there! However, her love for books, and her vibrant companionship with two friends of hers, stood her in good stead all along, and she was able to discover for herself her real self worth!

Some of her striking lines are witness to this, her growth!

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will!

Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; - it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,- as we are!"... therefore I am better than you - let me go!"

Therefore, this troubled search to find one’s own identity for oneself - living amongst the ignoble strife of the madding crowd - is achieved only through a strenuous process of trials, self-awakenings and revelations that the protagonist has to go through!

Sample yet another equally troubled search for finding one's own identity, in the much-renowned character of Nora! There are stark similarities in the rhetorical backlash and the powerful verbal strictures doled out by Jane to her lover Mr Rochester, and Nora's diatribe against her husband towards the climax in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House!

I quote from A Doll's House - 

Nora: I must try and get some sense, Torvald.

Helmer: To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don't consider what people will say!

Nora: I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary for me.

Helmer: It's shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties.

Nora: What do you consider my most sacred duties?

Helmer: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?

Nora: I have other duties just as sacred.

Helmer: That you have not. What duties could those be?

Nora: Duties to myself.

Helmer: Before all else, you are a wife and mother.

Nora: I don't believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.

Helmer: Can you not understand your place in your own home? Have you not a reliable guide in such matters as that? — have you no religion?

Nora: I am afraid, Torvald, I do not exactly know what religion is.

Helmer: What are you saying?

Nora: I know nothing but what the clergyman said, when I went to be confirmed. He told us that religion was this, and that, and the other. When I am away from all this, and am alone, I will look into that matter too. I will see if what the clergyman said is true, or at all events if it is true for me.

I’m quite reminded of Emerson’s famous lines that passionately advocate a ‘sabbatical’ or a solitary time for oneself to learn, to grow and to become a ‘superior being’! He says, and I quote –

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude!

Yet another endearing character, - and one of our childhood favvys too – has been Hucky – Huckleberry Finn! What a brilliant description there is, in this narrative by Twain, on Huck’s path towards ‘Self’hood! 

From being an 'Individual' to becoming a 'Person'!

On the Concept of 'Self' - 2

Pitstopping next on our literary sojourn, on the concept of 'Self', let’s turn our attention to an interesting 'self-made' character, named Jay!

Jay Gatsby @ The Great Gatsby dot com!

Jay is depicted as a self-made man, but with a difference!

Jay believes that his self-worth and happiness are very much connected with the pursuit of money and possessions! Therefore, being part of a social group, to Jay, is to have a unique and exalted social standing of well repute! His views on the ‘Self’ therefore tend to sync with the concept of being a part of a social group! In other words, he’s far removed or alienated from his sense of ‘Self’ as his ideas of the ‘Self’ get their significance only in relation to a particular social group, and to no other!

This pursuit of finding happiness by being a part of a social group (no pun intended! I swear), becomes an obsession to Jay, resulting in a kinda OCD! A compulsive disorder of sorts! He feels that his self worth would - swainggg - go for a toss, if he doesn’t belong to this particular social group!

The mighty philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau’s thoughts find such ample relevance here! To JJR,  it’s much-o-much important to cautiously guard, and diligently preserve one’s own freedom of the ‘Self’ in a sickening, social world where humans have become more and more dependent on one another that, they very strongly feel, connects much-o-much with their concept of self-worth! In short, this 'need' for a social connect, ain’t any longer a mere ‘want’ or a ‘desire,’ but a dire ‘need’ and a ‘necessity’ for them!

In his Social Contract, he (JJR) advocates the view that, real freedom for a human being is when ‘each citizen would obey only himself’! This is because, when a citizen hands over one’s right of ruling oneself to the hands of another person or corporation, it clearly constitutes a form of slavery in itself! So much to his exalted notions on power of the ‘Self’!

Well, it’s so interesting to note that Hegel and subsequently Marx himself, took a few leaves out of JJR’s books to work on this concept of alienation of the ‘Self’ in such impactful ways!

James Joyce in his Portrait, gives his readers a delightful glimpse into this concept of the ‘Self’ through his protagonist Stephen Dedalus, to whom ‘Self’ is always seen as being interconnected in a vast network of interrelated anomalies!

The young Stephen Dedalus is depicted as writing down his name in his geography book in an unending series of addresses that seem to identify him and thereby seeks to fix his identity based on a number of qualifiers!

Stephen Dedalus, Class of Elements, Clongowes College, Sallins, County Kildare, Ireland, Europe, the World, the Universe!

Tracing his identity from off his present class in which he is currently enrolled, to his college, to his county, to his country, to his continent, and to the universe, clearly outlines how Stephen’s perspectives on his ‘Self’ are enmeshed in a maze of qualifiers that constrain and constrict his identity and his views on his ‘Self’!

To Emile Durkheim, that famed French sociologist who has oft been discussed on our pages, a man is defined, constructed and constrained by his society and his social relations! The moment he starts playing his ‘social role’, he grows into a person, from being an individual!

That 'Precious Stone' - Notes on the Self from Socrates to Soren! ❤️

On the Concept of ‘Self!’ - I

Contemplations on the concept of the ‘Self’ have always been so fascinating and amazing!

Philosophers, litterateurs and sages of yore, down the ages, have given us all, powerful, life-sustaining, life-celebrating, life-impacting maxims that hinge on the importance of celebrating this wonderful concept of the ‘self’!

The Greek writer and geographer Pausanias, vouches to quite a few of these wonderful sayings on the ‘self,’ inscribed in gold, since days of yore, by sages across ages, at the sacred Temple of Apollo in Delphi, right at the forecourt to the temple! 

These life-giving words and useful phrases for humans, were edifying edifices that served to strengthen the soul! To this end, these maxims and aphorisms abounded aplenty in the mouths of all Greeks right from tiny tots to elders alike!

One of such impactful maxims that glistened and gleamed at the forecourt to the Temple is,

Know thyself!

Socrates later expanded and explicated on this wonderful aphorism, as –

The unexamined life is not worth living!

In fact, cultural orientations and their huge impact on the individual have always had a profound impact on the concept of the ‘Self’!

And, as is oft said, while the Western view of the ‘Self’ tends more towards ‘Individualism’, the Asian and African perspectives to the self have always laid more emphasis on ‘Collectivism’!

Hence foraying into these significant social views of the ‘Self’ have ramifications galore both on the societal and the individual planes as well!

However, I would try going beyond these social constructs of the ‘Self’ and strive to put forth a few glimpses of the Self from a ‘liminal’ist sweep!

Soren Kierkegaard, the most influential Danish philosopher of the 19^th century, in his book The Sickness Unto Death, [written in the year 1849,] says on the Self, that, 

The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if it were nothing: every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, etc. is bound to be noticed.

In fact, Kierkegaard’s profound investigations on the concept of the ‘Self’ was to greatly inspire, impact and influence a ‘host’ of later philosophers including the likes of Freud, William James, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Camus, Sartre, et al.

To Kierkegaard, there is within humans, the dualities of the finite and the infinite!

The finite to him, is a limiting, constraining and conditioning factor that impedes and prevents human beings from attaining their fullest potential, whereas the infinite is the ‘expanding factor’ that moots, inspires and motivates infinite possibilities galore within the human!

So the realm of the infinite within humans, is the capacity to think new thoughts, work on new ideas, create new streams of knowledge, work on new inventions, et al!

To restrict oneself to the finite mode, then, would be to perceive and to imagine that one is living in a cloistered, inescapable environment, where no escape is possible, and where there’s no possibility of breaking free into the world of the infinite! 

Such a perspective to life would often lead to anxiety, depression and a slavish dependence on others.

To Kierkegaard, such individuals often find safety and security by assimilating themselves into social, institutional, or familial networks, finding it,

too venturesome a thing to be himself, far easier and safer to be like the others, to become an imitation, a number, a cipher in the crowd. (The Sickness Unto Death)

On the contrary, ‘to lose oneself in the infinite’ would mean to live your little life on planet earth as though life presents to you a huge foray of unending possibilities of the vast expanse of the unexplored to be unearthed, and uncovered! To such people as this, life is seen as something so unique, so dynamic and so vibrant, as a ‘series of endlesssssss experiments!'

To them, life by default presents on a platter, a gigantic gut instinct that makes them say, Well, yesss! I can become and do so many things!

Kierkegaard quips that, a human being, is a synthesis of these opposites of the finite and the infinite!

Hence, with the plethora of choices available, one must choose, rather carefully, diligently and sagaciously, a definite way of life, and a style of living, that goes along so naturally and spontaneously with oneself! This required constant effort, systematic practice and patient striving, according to Kierkegaard!

In her brilliant poem aka monologue titled, ‘Journey to the Interior’, Atwood talks about this concept of the journey into the ‘Self’ which to her is the bestest journey ever, to the bestest destination ever! And that’s one reason why she says with the utmost conviction, ‘there are no destinations apart from this.’

Kierkegaard echoes a similar note, when he says that, on the path to selfhood one must ‘walk without meeting one single traveler’!

And the prize?

Yesss! To Kierkegaard, in this path to ‘Selfhood’ one gets to obtain for oneself, as a great reward, what he calls a ‘precious stone’! This precious stone is so precious, that one cannot obtain it unless one does some real patient and diligent toil!

This ‘precious stone’ is not strewn on the public, social pathways and byways! Nayver!!!

It’s something that’s contained deep within a person, and therefore, to obtain this great prize of unrivalled merit, one must have the guts to set out on a lonesome, solitary journey within, as a ‘single individual,’ devoid of the crowd! Devoid of the distractions! Devoid of the madding crowd’s ignoble strife! Devoid of the chantings of the crowd!

Anxiety or to be much specific, the existential angst, has a high therapeutic value to it, and therefore, all humans who are on the path to ‘Self’hood, must really go through this process of anxiety, which becomes a great teacher in itself!

Says Kierkegaard,

I will say that this is an adventure that every human being must go through – to learn to be anxious… Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate. (The Concept of Anxiety)

Well, in the light of Kierkegaard’s ruminations on the concept of ‘Self’ and ‘Selfhood’, me got impulsively inspired to work on quite a few interesting ponderings and reflections on the ‘Self’ from off literary reads from across the world, with the avowed objective of celebrating the concept of ‘Self’ like as we celebrate life and literature!

Please permit our first pitstop on this literary sojourn on the ‘self’ at some real immortal, inspiring lines of Nissim Ezekiel from his poem, ‘Enterprise’!

Ironic though he seems, in many of his candid kinda lines, he real has got such a brilliant point to make! A very effective point at that! 

In this poem, Nissim narrates the journey of a motley group of people, who decide to set out on a pilgrimage of sorts to some holy land!

The journey seems to have started off on such a noble note with very high intentions, and noble aspirations, as the pilgrimage was supposed to ‘exalt minds and make all the burdens light.’

But, soon, and quite soon at that, the group of pilgrims started getting disillusioned because they did not ‘test their call’ in the first place! Connoting to mean that, they did not first do the journey to the interior, before they could dare to do this journey to the exterior!

The poet ends this superb poem on a sarcastic note and an ironic tone - 

When finally we reached the place, We hardly knew why we were there. The trip had darkened every face, Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

We hardly knew why we were there. The trip had darkened every face, Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

We hardly knew why we were there. The trip had darkened every face, Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

We hardly knew why we were there. The trip had darkened every face, Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

Repetition is for that added emphasis!

I continue the quote Nissim from his ‘Enterprise’ –

We noticed nothing as we went,

A straggling crowd of little hope,

Ignoring what the thunder meant,

Deprived of common needs like soap.

Some were broken, some merely bent.

When, finally, we reached the place,

We hardly knew why we were there.

The trip had darkened every face,

Our deeds were neither great nor rare.

Home is where we have to gather grace.

Home here connotes the personal sphere! A real and insightful understanding of the ‘Self’!

How beautifully does Carl Jung sum it up, “Who looks outside dreams! Who looks inside, awakens!”

And add Tagore, the impactful bard, whose immortal lines that got him the Nobel – lines that we are still in awe of! 

Over to Tagore - 

My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers.

O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.

The child who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step.

In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move.

Talking then of the journey metaphor, he beautifully says,

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

we continue on our sojourn…

Image: steemitdotcom