Yet the definition we have made of ourselves is ourselves. To break out of it, we must make a new self. But how can the self make a new self when the selflessness which it is, is the only substance from which the new self can be made?
Interpretation
This quote conveys the idea that our self-identity is constructed and to change it, we must invent a new identity from our current self, which raises questions about the nature of selfhood.
Robert Penn Warren's quote explores the complex relationship between our self-identity and the processes required for personal transformation. It suggests that while we are bound by the definitions we've constructed for ourselves, changing our identity necessitates a re-examination of our essence and core values. The paradox lies in the notion that to create a new self, we must utilize the self that exists, raising profound questions about the nature of identity and self-evolution.
In practice
This quote can be used in a personal development seminar to inspire participants to rethink their self-identity.
...the air so still it aches like the place where the tooth was on the morning after you’ve been to the dentist or aches like your heart in the bosom when you stand on the street corner waiting for the light to change and happen to recollect how things once were and how they might have been yet if what happened had not happened.
The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.
So little time we live in Time,_x000D_ _x000D_ And we learn all so painfully,_x000D_ _x000D_ That we may spare this hour's term_x000D_ _x000D_ To practice for Eternity.
For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.
Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.
No one species shall make the life of the world its own.' … That's one expression of the law. Here's another: 'The world was not made for any one species.
I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
The Church is not an automobile showroom - a place to put ourselves on display so that others can admire our spirituality, capacity, or prosperity. It is more like a service center, where vehicles in need of repair come for maintenance and rehabilitation.
The Garden is a metaphor for the following: our minds, and our thinking in terms of pairs of opposites--man and woman, good and evil--are as holy as that of a god. (50)
When totalitarian regimes are established, they at least have the illusion of the single-minded purpose. But once they establish the stature that's necessary for a totalitarian regime, they tend to flail.
Most people are basically a victim of the circumstances of their life. They have things like 9/11, they have terrorism threats, they have new war threats, they have economy problems, and they think, 'What can I do? I'm basically a victim.'
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