What matters more?

[GSLeloo]

This is just me being curious... but what matters more in defining who you are. Is it how you think of yourself or how others think of you?

[Hips]

How you think of yourself.

[Chadj]

How you think of yourself... Which, unfortunately, has at least some, if not a lot, to do with what others think of you.

[Halfsilver]

How you percieve yourself is how you will present yourself to others...

hence...how others think of you is how you percieve yourself.

it's math.

-grays

[Back]

I'm going to be zen and say a little of both.

What you think of yourself counts a lot towards what other people think of you, so if you are happy with yourself, people will see that and agree. If you are happy, and someone says you aren't, you know who has the problem.

Other the other hand, I feel the addage "Dress rich and people will think you're rich." Or, "Looking the part is half the battle." Consider who you are, and how you dress. People DO judge books by their covers, its natural. If you wear sweats, a t-shirt, and flip flops all the time, people are going to think differently of you than if you wore Calvin Klein. I think if people start believing you are a certain person, you go a long way to being that person.

Ultimately though, its all about you. If you dress a part, its you who wants that certain reaction.

[GSLeloo]

Ok well how about this... what if you truly, TRULY believe that you are a bird? (Yes, it's silly). But everyone says no, you're a human but you truly believe you're a bird. Which are you? What you think or what others say you are?

[GSLeloo]

Here's the story that goes along with it and a question to follow...

Ok, this bear hibernates and a factory is built around where he's hibernating. So he wakes up and is in the middle of this factory and this guy tells him to get to work. And the bear says he doesn't work, he's a bear. And the guy says you're not a bear, you're a man that needs to shave and is wearing a fur coat. So they go from person to person and each person keeps telling him he's a man that needs to shave and is wearing a fur coat.
Finally after even the bears at the zoo and the circus tell him he's not a bear, he goes and works at the factory. And he works until it closes and it's winter and he feels the need to hibernate and keeps denying it because only bears hibernate and he's not a bear. Well eventually he does hibernate, proving he was a bear all along.
The question is, at any point was the bear not a bear? (And think of it in terms of how he saw himself and how others saw him)

[Betheny]

How I think of myself. Regardless of how big of a jerk or weirdo I may be, someone will always like me... right?

[GSLeloo]

I guess it becomes like... who is right? If you believe you are a bird and everyone tells you you're a human, which is right?

[Betheny]

I tend to believe myself more than others. Not that it isn't disconcerting when someone says something I don't like or think is untrue about me. But in the end, painting a white horse with black stripes doesn't make it a zebra. It's still a horse.

[Back]

The bear is still a bear, although probably having a bit of an identity crisis. :) At the end of the day, just like in the begining, the bear is still a bear, so all those people are wrong, and what we've learned is...

Yep, its more important to stay true to yourself and remember who you are than to listen to what everyone else thinks of you or what you should be.

[GSLeloo]

We discussed this in class and this is what my teachers point was... what makes the bear a bear? Is it having fur or being large? Without going into biology.. just describing a bear. By working in the factory and accepting what it had been told by basically all of society... didn't it technically stop being a bear and fall into the role of being a human?

[Back]

I guess... but how can you NOT go into biology? I mean, I see the point your teacher was trying to make, but the example is a bit extreme. Maybe, if everyone told a stupid person they were smart, would it really make them smart?

[Betheny]

One could argue that what makes a bear a bear is its DNA structure.

I think the generally accepted consensus would be something like how they classify dogs in the AKC... they have to have certain points... color, body structure, etc.

[GSLeloo]

Well for this it was more just looking at perception. Is it how you perceive yourself or how others perceive you that makes you who you are? All the others saw him as a man and he saw himself as a bear... until eventually he technically did see himself as a man and did what all the other men do. So which was right?

[Betheny]

I'm not 100% sure I get what you're saying, but I'll take a crack at it.

When it comes to physical things (Such as a man being a bear) what you are is what you are. If you are a bear, even if you think you are human, you are not human. Why? Because you are a bear. You are not human, and you never will be human.

Alternately, if you are a person, and someone is saying you are something you are not, such as "You're a dumbass" or "You are a bear"... that does not make it true, even if the person saying it thinks it's true.

I'm confusing myself.

[GSLeloo]

But I guess the question is (without going into DNA, biology, or any of that...) what makes a bear a bear? What makes a human a human? Is it that you know you are a human, that others know you are a human...

[Adhara]

The bear was a bad example because it easy to draw the line between human and bear based on undeniable physical traits. The example would be much more interesting with something that is totally subjective like beauty.

Person lives by herself on island since birth, thinks she is very beautiful. Ship rescues her, everyone tells her she is ugly. Thet tell her she is ugly for so long she ends up believing it and thinks she is ugly. Ship sinks in a storm, she's the only survivor and ends up on yet another island. Years later she realizes that she is beautiful.

Ok that was the short version. Was she beautiful all along? Yes and no.

She was ugly all along for the people of the ship. She was beautiful, then ugly, then beautiful, in her own eyes.

There is, in psychological lingo, a model called the Johari Window which is about those aspects of yourself that are known or unknown to you and known or unknown to others. It goes like this (I hope it displays right):

Known to others Not known to others

Known to self Open Blind

Not known to self Hidden Unknown

The 4 panes will vary in size at different stages of your life. Anyway all that to say that the difference between Open and Blind could explain why people see you in a different way, or your Hidden pane could explain why you see yourself differently.

When it comes to biology and DNA, you are what science says you are and if science changes its mind later on, then you will be something else at that point. When it comes to the personality and other subjective attributes, the only accurate statement you can make is, "I am ... to MYSELF." And when people say, "you are greedy" what is implied is, "I perceive you as greedy."

When the world perceives you as something you deny being, it's time for a little self-examination. The world is not always right, far from it, but only good can ever come of self-examination right?

Edit: Blah that Johari window came out all ugly. I don't have time to make a html table right now. Just go see it here:

http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html

[Edited on 9-10-2003 by Adhara]

[GSLeloo]

Well the bear was a story we had to read in our book... "Facing History and Ourselves". The class this actually came from is Holocaust Studies and Human Behavior. I think it wasn't really supposed to be going by physical appearances.

He is a bear because we know he's a bear but what makes him that? Fur? Claws? Teeth? And it was just going back to what affects you more, what you think you are or what other people think you are.

[Adhara]

If you persist with the bear, the bear was a bear and will always be a bear. If teeth, fur and claws are acceptable in your story to define a bear then so be it, he is a bear because of the fur, teeth and claws.

What affects you more? That depends on the individual. Those with serious self-esteem issues are overly affected with other people's opinions while overly self-loving have their own issues and are minimally affected by others' opinion. The more balanced people know they can rely on their own opinion of themselves but are wise enough to keep an open ear for input. When other people's opinion of you differs from yours by a lot, like I pointed out above, it's time for a good self-examination. Balance in everything, I say.

A bear is only a bear if he believes himself to be.

What you think of yourself is all that matters. Period.

[peam]

If it looks like a bear, walks like a bear, and mauls campers like a bear, it must be a bear.

Originally posted by peam
If it looks like a bear, walks like a bear, and mauls campers like a bear, it must be a bear.

No, it could in fact be a very drunk, very hairy serial killing human.

Or it could be a pixie who appears to be a bear... or perhaps there is no bear, maybe you're hallucinating, or maybe it's an alien with a device that makes it seem to be a bear. Maybe it's a bigfoot.

It could be anything is the point...

Wolfpaw moves like an adventurer, he hunts like an adventurer, he dies like an adventurer... yet he is, in fact, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

[peam]

You should've just left it alone. It was funnier that way.

[imported_Kranar]

Self perception and awareness is the only one thing you can be certain of.

I think therefore I am.

The key is not to just care about what you think about yourself, but to seriously be honest about how you think about yourself. Being honest about oneself is incredibly difficult because factually we are all sociopaths to one degree or another and so we'll do something wrong or give into a temptation and justify it simply so we don't feel guilty.

Integrity and honesty: if you have both of them, then you won't even care what others think about you.

[Weedmage Princess]

http://hometown.aol.com/fungimagi/images/yeahthat.gif