Some self-definition about, er, self-definition

[ceri]

Something came into focus for me this afternoon, as I was exchanging e-mail with an old friend about, among other things, the temptation to believe that the definitions we use are as objective as the world we apply them to. 'Tain't so, of course. Both our categories and the options within them are definitions we construct, and the world isn't obliged to conform. But in practice we can't be always stopping to define stuff if we're actually engaged in any kind of exchange with others. We use available definitions where they don't miss too horribly badly and sort of roll on....

But right now I have very few obligations to be engaged in that kind of exchange. Meanwhile, I do have some real need to be reexamining more of my own mental landscape and my definition of it. I hadn't explicitly connected these things before, but it seems obvious as soon as I did it: I am withdrawing from blogs, forums, and other net interaction so that I can spend more time in self-definition. I'd been thinking "I'm withdrawing, and I'm re-defining", but I see that the connection is stronger than that.

My counselor's been encouraging me all along to make sure I take the proper time to deal with all of this stuff, both the actions called for and the thoughts and feelings they stir up. So this is very much part of that overall therapeutic project. And I'm glad to know that.

Comments

[flit]

It's actually very helpful to go quiet to deal with internal matters.