So I have been doing a lot of think lately about us,humans and more importantly, the individual. Part of this thread, well much of it is due in part to my psychology course. Again, it might be a bit in length and I'm going to attempt to dive into a subject where my knowledge can be vastly limited, I'll do my best so bare with me why don't you.
Have you ever just sat in one spot on just, started to think? Have you thought about the world and how complicated it really is? Have you been in a relationship where you strive to try and understand your partner? Have you thought about yourself? Dug deep into your core being and attempt to pick yourself apart, piece by piece and try to analysis and understand you, as a person. Maybe you've attempted to apply this onto somebody else, whatever the case I'm going to plunge into a couple of subjects. Each might help us come closer to understand oneself and might put some of that heavy thinking to rest. The first will be Cognitive thinking, next will be motivation and emotion and final I will go into personality.
Cognitive Thinking: Okay well,everybody knows that thinking in general terms is the mental activity that goes on in the brain as we are processing information, trying to organize it and make sense of it,simple. We think using two types. Mental imaging which is exactly that and then their is the concept side of things. Concepts can be represented by a class or some category of objects, events or activities. These are generally the two types of cognitive think we subject ourselves to every day. Then there are the sub categories of problem solving and decision making as well as ones own creativity. Intelligence also plays a big role in somebodies cognitive thinking. While all of this can contribute to layering ones self it is not really what I wanted to get into, so I will be moving on, I just wanted to get all that out of the way.
Motivation and Emotion: What motivates you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? Why feel the need to do things that are expected of you? According to a guy by the name of Abraham Maslow, he created a pyramid of hierarchy of needs. It goes a little something like this
At the bottom we have the physiological needs. Our basic drives such as thirst, hunger and so on.
Next we have our safety needs. Our needs to feel safe, secure and out of any danger.
Then comes our belongingness and love needs: Desire to be with others, to be needed and accepted.
Esteem needs. Desire to achieve and be contempt,gain approval and recognize.
Cognitive needs comes next with desire to know, understand and explore all these desires.
Aesthetic needs: Understanding of symmetry,order and beauty.
and at the top of the pyramid we have our self-actualization needs. Our need to find self-fulfillment and realize and understand ones own potential.
According to Maslow and his pyramid,these are all our overall needs in life. Now that order can vary from individual to individual and may be completely subjective. Some might also score higher in one area than another, example, somebody might place their esteem needs above cognitive needs or place it at the very top.But we all have the need to fulfill these needs in some fashion. Maslow states that you start at the bottom of the list and move up as you go through life and gain wisdom and knowledge of how to handle different situations. But as far as motivation goes there are to basic types. intrinsic and extrinsic, intrinsic is the motivation that we get from ourselves, from inside. It is an act in which a person performs an action because the act itself is rewarding or satisfying in some internal manner. It is the motivation that you, yourself create. Extrinsic is the opposite as you would imagine. It is the motivation that somebody brings upon you. Most commonly found in the work place. If your boss tells you to get something done and you do it, that is an example of extrinsic motivation. If you get an allowance every week for keeping your room clean but hate the act yourself but you do it because your parents tell or force you to do it then is another example of extrinsic motivation. Well since that took up a lot of room, I'm just going to skip emotion and jump right into personality.
..To think I didn't even get to cover everything, oh well. Personality. You all know what personality is right? I would gather that much, it is the unique way in which one acts, feels and thinks throughout their life. Don't mix up personality with character, character refers to value judgment dealing with ones own moral or ethical standpoint. Sigmund Freud, I'm sure you have all heard that name at some point correct? He was the founder of the psycho-dynamic movement in psychology. He believed that the mind was divided into three parts. The preconscious mind, consciousness and the unconscious mind.
The preconscious mind is were all the information, events, concerns and thoughts are not aware of are kept. These bits can be accessed and brought into awareness in the conscious mind when the need arises.The conscious mind is all that a person is aware of at any given moment. The unconscious mind is the part of the mind that is under the surface all the time and remains hidden. Surfacing only in symbolic forms such as dreams and in types of behavior people engage in when they have not known why they have engaged in it to begin with.
Welcome to the divisions of the personality. Which contains the ID, ego and superego.ID: if it feels good then do it. The id is the most primitive part of the personality. It is completely unconscious part of the personality that exists at birth and contains all the basic drives we talked about earlier. The ego is part of the personality that develops out of the need to deal with reality. The ego is mostly conscious, rational and logical. It is there to satisfy the demands of the id and reduce libido in ways that will not lead to negative consequences. Then their is the superego which acts as a moral center. The superego plays host to the ego ideal(Standards for moral behavior) and the conscience(Part of the superego that develops pride or guilt..not to be confused with conscious)
After going through all of this you have to think that the "self" of any individual is complicated and unique in any sense. When it comes to thinking about yourself or another in great depth, it can warp your brain in knots. Why does one person do something knowing that what he or she is doing may not be morally acceptable? He/she might know it is bad, accept the fact it is bad, knows that he/she should not do it but yet fails to break that kind of internal conflict and does it anyway..then struggles with the same type of conflict when a similar situation presents itself. This part is going back to the conscience part of ones individuality. This thread is not to discuss every individual and analysis them but to analysis yourself and try to comprehend that why some of us struggle to deal with things that others might find trivial, its about that inner conflict we all fight and that inner growth we strives to get out and expand. I must say, as a person I have to constantly live with, I'm personally disgusted by myself. I have done things that, morally and ethically were deemed unacceptable. I have standards and principles that I seem to break. In knowing all this I constantly have to fight with myself to grow and be the person I want to be but its as if I'm fighting it every step of the way when I know I don't want to or plainly shouldn't. It inflames me because I seem to have this inability to make any real progress with myself and I lack much understanding to make the kind of change I needed to make in order to improve myself and build on my character. Just when I think I know myself, I surprise myself in a new and unexpected way, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse. I would say my mind is a prison, but hell in prison you can at least make an escape. I live with myself everyday and it can be difficult for me when I'm on a journey to try and rediscover myself and find out who I am. For me I would place my cognitive needs and self-actualization needs at the top of my pyramid.
How do you view not just yourself but the self in general. Is it something you understand or does it frustrate you as much as me. Discuss, lets hear some of your stories and views on this.
Have you ever just sat in one spot on just, started to think? Have you thought about the world and how complicated it really is? Have you been in a relationship where you strive to try and understand your partner? Have you thought about yourself? Dug deep into your core being and attempt to pick yourself apart, piece by piece and try to analysis and understand you, as a person. Maybe you've attempted to apply this onto somebody else, whatever the case I'm going to plunge into a couple of subjects. Each might help us come closer to understand oneself and might put some of that heavy thinking to rest. The first will be Cognitive thinking, next will be motivation and emotion and final I will go into personality.
Cognitive Thinking: Okay well,everybody knows that thinking in general terms is the mental activity that goes on in the brain as we are processing information, trying to organize it and make sense of it,simple. We think using two types. Mental imaging which is exactly that and then their is the concept side of things. Concepts can be represented by a class or some category of objects, events or activities. These are generally the two types of cognitive think we subject ourselves to every day. Then there are the sub categories of problem solving and decision making as well as ones own creativity. Intelligence also plays a big role in somebodies cognitive thinking. While all of this can contribute to layering ones self it is not really what I wanted to get into, so I will be moving on, I just wanted to get all that out of the way.
Motivation and Emotion: What motivates you? What gets you out of bed in the morning? Why feel the need to do things that are expected of you? According to a guy by the name of Abraham Maslow, he created a pyramid of hierarchy of needs. It goes a little something like this
At the bottom we have the physiological needs. Our basic drives such as thirst, hunger and so on.
Next we have our safety needs. Our needs to feel safe, secure and out of any danger.
Then comes our belongingness and love needs: Desire to be with others, to be needed and accepted.
Esteem needs. Desire to achieve and be contempt,gain approval and recognize.
Cognitive needs comes next with desire to know, understand and explore all these desires.
Aesthetic needs: Understanding of symmetry,order and beauty.
and at the top of the pyramid we have our self-actualization needs. Our need to find self-fulfillment and realize and understand ones own potential.
According to Maslow and his pyramid,these are all our overall needs in life. Now that order can vary from individual to individual and may be completely subjective. Some might also score higher in one area than another, example, somebody might place their esteem needs above cognitive needs or place it at the very top.But we all have the need to fulfill these needs in some fashion. Maslow states that you start at the bottom of the list and move up as you go through life and gain wisdom and knowledge of how to handle different situations. But as far as motivation goes there are to basic types. intrinsic and extrinsic, intrinsic is the motivation that we get from ourselves, from inside. It is an act in which a person performs an action because the act itself is rewarding or satisfying in some internal manner. It is the motivation that you, yourself create. Extrinsic is the opposite as you would imagine. It is the motivation that somebody brings upon you. Most commonly found in the work place. If your boss tells you to get something done and you do it, that is an example of extrinsic motivation. If you get an allowance every week for keeping your room clean but hate the act yourself but you do it because your parents tell or force you to do it then is another example of extrinsic motivation. Well since that took up a lot of room, I'm just going to skip emotion and jump right into personality.
..To think I didn't even get to cover everything, oh well. Personality. You all know what personality is right? I would gather that much, it is the unique way in which one acts, feels and thinks throughout their life. Don't mix up personality with character, character refers to value judgment dealing with ones own moral or ethical standpoint. Sigmund Freud, I'm sure you have all heard that name at some point correct? He was the founder of the psycho-dynamic movement in psychology. He believed that the mind was divided into three parts. The preconscious mind, consciousness and the unconscious mind.
The preconscious mind is were all the information, events, concerns and thoughts are not aware of are kept. These bits can be accessed and brought into awareness in the conscious mind when the need arises.The conscious mind is all that a person is aware of at any given moment. The unconscious mind is the part of the mind that is under the surface all the time and remains hidden. Surfacing only in symbolic forms such as dreams and in types of behavior people engage in when they have not known why they have engaged in it to begin with.
Welcome to the divisions of the personality. Which contains the ID, ego and superego.ID: if it feels good then do it. The id is the most primitive part of the personality. It is completely unconscious part of the personality that exists at birth and contains all the basic drives we talked about earlier. The ego is part of the personality that develops out of the need to deal with reality. The ego is mostly conscious, rational and logical. It is there to satisfy the demands of the id and reduce libido in ways that will not lead to negative consequences. Then their is the superego which acts as a moral center. The superego plays host to the ego ideal(Standards for moral behavior) and the conscience(Part of the superego that develops pride or guilt..not to be confused with conscious)
After going through all of this you have to think that the "self" of any individual is complicated and unique in any sense. When it comes to thinking about yourself or another in great depth, it can warp your brain in knots. Why does one person do something knowing that what he or she is doing may not be morally acceptable? He/she might know it is bad, accept the fact it is bad, knows that he/she should not do it but yet fails to break that kind of internal conflict and does it anyway..then struggles with the same type of conflict when a similar situation presents itself. This part is going back to the conscience part of ones individuality. This thread is not to discuss every individual and analysis them but to analysis yourself and try to comprehend that why some of us struggle to deal with things that others might find trivial, its about that inner conflict we all fight and that inner growth we strives to get out and expand. I must say, as a person I have to constantly live with, I'm personally disgusted by myself. I have done things that, morally and ethically were deemed unacceptable. I have standards and principles that I seem to break. In knowing all this I constantly have to fight with myself to grow and be the person I want to be but its as if I'm fighting it every step of the way when I know I don't want to or plainly shouldn't. It inflames me because I seem to have this inability to make any real progress with myself and I lack much understanding to make the kind of change I needed to make in order to improve myself and build on my character. Just when I think I know myself, I surprise myself in a new and unexpected way, sometimes for the better and sometimes for worse. I would say my mind is a prison, but hell in prison you can at least make an escape. I live with myself everyday and it can be difficult for me when I'm on a journey to try and rediscover myself and find out who I am. For me I would place my cognitive needs and self-actualization needs at the top of my pyramid.
How do you view not just yourself but the self in general. Is it something you understand or does it frustrate you as much as me. Discuss, lets hear some of your stories and views on this.
