Alright so I was sitting here rereading some of our posts-as is my want-and I came to last week's question and comments. Nate said that growing up is like being a pearl with new experiences being constantly laid down and wrapped around around mind and personality. As you grow and mature the surface of you changes and you yourself notice changes in the way you behave. The way you used to behave is still there, but it slowly gets buried as you gain new experiences.
Makes a certain amount of sense huh? Clever guy Nate, you should read his book some time. It's rather good.
Anyway, what I got thinking about is what about the core of the pearl of your mind? I've conducted many hours of informal study on personality in general and the ways people tend to follow certain patterns and fall into categories. One could easily say, and I believe rightly so, that this is because of the social conditioning that one under goes from birth and that what we see and interact with is merely the outer most layers of the person.
But what about the pearl's core? When you strip away all the layers that have been laid down over the years what's there? Are people born a certain way? Is that antisocial misfit you work with at the office that way because they were born that way or because they were layered that way? Does that bubbly and helpful girl act that way because she has an innate born instinct to be helpful and kind or did her parents simply teach her since birth?
Can a person overcome and completely bury what's in their core or will it always shine through no matter how hard they try to cover it up? Are we slaves to our cores or are we the masters?
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2 comments:
I've always thought that people are born good and nice, but over time they learn that being too nice won't get them anywhere. Little kids are friendly and nice. Society teaches them not to be.
No, kids are not born nice and friendly. I've seen enough of them at work that I know these things. They hit each other and scream. And when they hit it's not like a play hit that an adult might do, they hit as hard as their little limbs can swing. People may not be born as unfeeling, antisocial monsters, but they aren't born as perfect little angels.
Our built in instincts are to fight and take whatever we need/want. Modern society reshapes that into something more civilized.
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