“Be true to yourself. Be honest with yourself. Be yourself, within yourself,” said Society.
To try and attempt to understand what the philosophy around being yourself means will take forever. Or rather, to try and attempt to understand what the philosophy around being yourself means will be from the point of myself explaining the philosophy of being yourself. By that I mean that trying to explain what it means to be yourself, I will be using myself as a reference. Thus, the philosophy of being yourself I can explain by being myself.
This approach will lead the explanation down the drain. I am already myself and you are already yourself. But even so, in myself, there are desires and aspirations that have been suppressed by the opinions of others. Like yourself. These others usually mean good. Because their advice travels in a medium that means to do good, the message reaches its destination therefore it alters one's mind to taking it into cognizant. The wise words of a mother cause more damage than the insultful words of an enemy. The caring words of a sister strikes the heart with more impact than the jealous words of an imbecile you pay no regard. This advice that travels on the waves of good intentions paves your road to hell. Hell in this cause being a reality that’s outside yourself.
Within yourself, lies a definite purpose that guides your motives and aspirations in life. Some of these motives and aspirations we do not understand but we feel their overwhelming presence in our lives. This presence compels us to venture into them so that we can understand them. However, most of these overwhelming feelings that lay within us are seen as a taboo. Because of this, many do not experience and express these feelings and are forced to go through life with blocked energy channels.
These blockages are clear to see. The young girl who wishes to embrace her sexuality is seen as harlot in the eyes of her mother. Because of this, she coils herself in the shadows of her mother’s “well meant” advice. In these shadows, she conceals her beauty that no man dare see or touch. She will battle fiercely against her urges to resist any male who approaches her yet in her she wants the male to touch her. This fierce battle that happens within many females, very few conquer.
Most females who experience this battle usually have two routes to life. The first route is that they live in the shadows under their mother’s advice but when the mother leaves and the light of freedom shines bright on her, she will engage happily with men. She will develop what many call the ‘church girl syndrome’. The church girl syndrome comes from the notion that most church girls are the most heart breaking females to walk the Earth. They praise the Lord wholeheartedly on Sunday but entertain the pleasures of the flesh gladly on Saturday. This double life living leads many girls into depression and some, sadly, fall deeper into the abyss of getting pleasures of the flesh yet believing the mask of purity still conceals their actions. Thus, they never truly become who they are meant to be but rather they become confused to which person is truly their true nature.
The other route for the females who experience this fierce battle, they conquer the battle by deciding what life they will live. There are the girls who embrace the fact that they are sexual in nature and do not care if they are cussed out by society because of it. They are the church girls who live their life according to the laws of the Word and make no mistake to live outside the Word. These are the females who experience hardships but because they understand who they are, who they truly are regardless of others around her, live life according to her own heartbeat.
These observations are very immature and vague, this is true. They are a mere generalization of the topic at hand. The fact is that many males also go through a similar nature of existence. This existence that is carved out by the society, as it leads many to the entrapment of self. The worst hell there is.
There was once a hype in Pretoria called the Social Market. It was interesting. Those who were free in who they are, they found it no problem to express themselves the way they saw fit in these gatherings. So much so, they would not judge the next man or woman in the way that they expressed themselves as well. You would find a man dressed head to toe in nothing but Polo socializing with a lady wearing a very transparent shirt. You would see a lady in a pencil skirt, wearing red-bottom heels socialising with a man who’s wild chest hair is thick enough to be a forest for insects. Yet, the flow of energy between these individuals had no air of judgement or critic of the person’s individuality of those around them. Those who had a problem in that environment or about that sort of environment however, they were the naysayers and deemed the Social Market as a gathering place of devil worshippers and moral less youths who have gone rouge. As expected, these judging criticisms came mostly from elders who are more than ready to give the youth “good advice.”
I was with my friend the other day. We were sitting in the heart of Setsing, waiting for the 5:30pm bus to arrive. As we were standing, waiting for the bus, we observed a lot of old people passing us by. Some were parents of people we know. In between, children in school uniform would run around and scurry away. What my friend said next caught my attention. Very bluntly, he said that he is happy that the old people are dying. That statement was very bold and I had to ask him why. Without taking too much time, his response was concise and extremely straight to the point. He said that he is happy old people are dying so that they can leave with their judgmental and self-destructive ways with them. Like many children who grew up in a middle class society, he told me a story that many relate with. He told me the story of how his mother wanted him to open a clothing account. He asked his mother why and his mother simply said that so he can buy clothes. He told his mother that if he needed clothes, he would save money and buy the clothes he needed when he needs them. His mother was left confused and like any other older person when defeated, she said that he was still too young to understand.
The understanding that my friend understands is that a clothing account is just bad credit. Especially since he isn’t into clothing nor has aspirations to enter into the fashion industry. This one story relates to many other aspects of our lives. Marriages, relationships, wealth and the most ignored of all- sexuality. Many go through their lives wondering what pleasures is promised with their sexuality. Others are so damaged by their past sexual experiences, they live their lives as sexual zombies feeding on any sexual energies they find. However, when this young man or young lady were to ask about his feelings about sexuality to an elder, they are usually turned down or given a platonic religious answer. For those who are religious, and live strictly to the code of their religion, the religious answer is more than enough to answer their worries. The majority of the people are not as religious; and so, they go through life unanswered.
My other friend told me such a weird yet funny story. Funny, depending on how you receive the story. He told me that he had his first wet dream when he was in high school. He enjoyed the dream so much that with great enthusiasm, he decided to tell his mother about it. His mother however shunned him down; telling him that she is taking his phone since he is using it to watch pornography. He had not watched a single video of porn at this time. His mother went on and on about how he is now a rogue who is undisciplined. At the end of the burst of words, his mother’s eyes swelled with tears. She told him that she misses the days when as a young child, he would “smack” his member for standing erect. To this day, he fails to understand why his mother had such a reaction to his first taste of his sexuality.
It is unfortunate that he is the only male in his family. Perhaps, if he had a father to tell the story, perhaps the outcome could have been different. Luckily, he did not grow up to become a sexual predator because of his experiences as a child. These stories of sexuality are the easiest to use to explain how many of us live our lives under the covers. These covers could have been created for us by family and friends or these covers we could have created them by ourselves- to look good in the eyes of family and friends. The fact is, many of us live life according to the beat of someone else’s drum and not our own. In today's world where one can be whoever they desire to be, this is very unfortunate.
This lack of understanding in who we are, leads many to live a life without purpose. Purpose is one element that is given only to you and only for you to live. No one could have formulated the philosophy of success like Napoleon Hill because it was Napoleon Hill’s purpose that he should formulate such a philosophy. No one could have liberated the nation like Nelson Mandela because it was his purpose to liberate South Africa. These men understood who they are and they lived their lives according to the beat of their lives and thus they were able to understand their purpose in life. From this, they were able to carry out their purpose and manifest it to the world.
The question of purpose has been on my mind and this question has led me to write this. Many people live their lives, selling their lives for the hour so that they can go out on weekends and have fun with friends. Yes, there is nothing wrong with having fun with family and friends but there is everything wrong when that’s all you live for. It is true, to understand oneself is a process that never ends. The average human’s brain fully mature when they turn the age of 25. The average human succeeds in life after they turn 40. Since the expression that life begins at 40. Over the years they have been anomalies to this law as seen with Bill Gates who made billions before turning 40 and also Zuckerberg made his fortunes well before turning 40 as well. But many philosophers believe that these men and women who have attained such great success early in their lives, are only about to achieve the pinnacle of their true selves. This can be seen with Bill Gates’ foundation that is so well endowed that it can feed a whole country- by itself.
Before we can understand what we are called for on this planet, it is first important to understand who we are. Who we truly are when we look into the mirror. Are we shells of the suggestions and the expectations of family and friends or are we the true reflection of our own actions and deeds? By own actions and deeds, I mean the actions and deeds we can fully account to and attribute to no one but ourselves. As David Bowie once said, aging is the extraordinary process of being who you truly are. As we age and become the elders of tomorrow, it is important we stop imposing our laws on the younger children. We should instead be the beacons of light that never shone for us. In doing so, a person can truly be free to be who they truly are.