{"id":319,"date":"2010-03-29T06:40:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T13:40:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/?p=319"},"modified":"2010-03-29T06:40:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T13:40:46","slug":"the-self-an-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/03\/29\/the-self-an-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"The Self &#8211; An Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Personal growth is a constant reflection of the choices one has taken to aid the Self in making better decisions at forks in the path to come. Personal growth isn&#8217;t something one does by reading a book and executing against its vision. That isn&#8217;t personal growth, but instead a cheap form of outsourcing of the same.  And yet the self-help sections of bookstores are filled with best sellers which promise everyone the opportunity to live the path which allowed {insert famous individual here} to succeed and potentially share, if one is a strict disciple of the process, a sliver of their success. It baffles me, and leaves me to wonder, and worry, about the nature of individuals, and the loss of Self.  <\/p>\n<p>Looking at society today I find myself convinced of the following:  Our children are coddled and sheltered. Our youth is disillusioned and unmotivated. Our generation is lost, while our parents deliver entitlements to themselves for which we will someday have to answer to to our yet unborn grandchildren. Declaring war on apathy and indifference would just be another cheap parlor trick to join the War on Poverty and Drugs which has already left us with a farcical social safety net and a totalitarian incarceration rate. The mountain our generation must climb now isn&#8217;t one with a fancy name nor one which promises endless riches and glory, but instead one that must be taken upon by a society of lost individuals pushing for a renewed and improved collection of Selves who together at the top will have created through their journey a society in which the sum of the whole is greater than that of the parts. <\/p>\n<p>This series of essays will be my contribution for this Lost generation&#8217;s quest to rediscover itself, with the hope that we can deliver a better tomorrow than the one that we inherited today. The preceding paragraphs of this post are a basic introduction of the problem that I hope to address, and the next few paragraphs are the framework upon which I plan to build.<\/p>\n<p>My primary goal is to define the Self and show how awareness of the Self leads to a better understanding of one&#8217;s environment. This in turn lays down the foundation for a society of individuals who are both aware and invested in the whole exactly because it empowers the individual.<\/p>\n<p>The Self is the collection of decisions which have been made during one&#8217;s journey and a loose understanding of the consequences which resulted and factors which preceded the said decisions.<\/p>\n<p>The role of the Self is as the foundation upon which future unknown decisions will be made given that the anxiety over the uncertainty of the future is somewhat relieved by a faith that one&#8217;s past experiences will aid in one&#8217;s future conundrums.<\/p>\n<p>The thesis is that only through an acute awareness of the Self are we able to rediscover a sense of belonging and togetherness of which the now defunct American dream has robbed us.<\/p>\n<p>This won&#8217;t help others walk their paths. This is not a self-help essay.  The only goal is to act as a sounding board for anyone who reads it and finds in it a nugget of interest for themselves.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Personal growth is a constant reflection of the choices one has taken to aid the Self in making better decisions at forks in the path to come. Personal growth isn&#8217;t something one does by reading a book and executing against its vision. That isn&#8217;t personal growth, but instead a cheap form of outsourcing of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[55,1],"tags":[53,54],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-59","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1652,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/12\/13\/self-worth-a-toddlers-point-of-view\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":0},"title":"Self-worth - a toddler's point of view","date":"December 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It's fascinating how much of the reflection we see in the mirror is a reflection of what others have told us about ourselves. In this case, it's more of a metaphorical mirror, and also more of a metaphorical reflection. But it has a bigger impact than the physical one that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Fatherhood&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":322,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/04\/21\/the-self-awareness-building-the-scenario\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":1},"title":"The Self - Awareness - Building the scenario","date":"April 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This blog post will introduce a basic scenario around which I hope to build the story through which I'll explain my thesis. Scenario: Two people are at a table sitting across from each other. A third person joins them sitting at the end of the table between the two. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;the Self essay&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/09\/17\/to-install-openldap-on-mac-os-x\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":2},"title":"To Configure OpenLDAP on MAC OS X","date":"September 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"So it turns out that to install my development environment for Zimbra that I had to install OpenLDAP. The problem is that on Mac OS X the version of the Berkeley DB that comes installed isn't high enough for the current version of OpenLDAP. As a result, I had to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Summer of Zimbra&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/08\/11\/it-isnt-supposed-to-make-sense\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":3},"title":"It isn't supposed to make sense","date":"August 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Forever is a really long time. To really make forever with anyone work, there is a lot of give and take. Parents, siblings, lovers, children, friends... It's a lot of people with whom you are both consciously and subconsciously compromising. There are incredibly silly things that are just resolved in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Ramadan&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/04\/05\/encroachment-in-information-mining-technologies-part-viii\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":4},"title":"Encroachment in Information Mining Technologies - Part VIII","date":"April 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A myth of the Internet must also be broken down so that progress can be made. The Internet does not provide unbound freedom from one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s physical self. One exists on the Internet similarly to the notion of existence in reality. There is an expectation to act responsibly. One cannot escape\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Information Mining Essay&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2010\/01\/02\/leaving-the-bubble-behind\/","url_meta":{"origin":319,"position":5},"title":"Leaving the bubble behind","date":"January 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It has taken me almost six months to write this post. It's been floating in my head for a long time. Since she left really. But I had to really know what I wanted to say. This isn't a breakup post with a person or a closing of a chapter.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;just thinking out loud&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}