In the midst of a conversation, the term “behaving ethically” came up and it evolved into what one means by ethics. Ethics as defined by who exactly? Have you ever thought about what your personal ethics are? Do they differ from society’s expectations of what ethical behaviour should be? If they don’t, what of it? There are definitely things I believe to be OK that society would deem unethical. But like, life is tricks - I get it, you know?
In Tim Kreider’s essay “Averted Vision” he says “We mistakenly imagine we want 'happiness,' which we tend to picture in vague, soft-focus terms, when what we really crave is the harder-edged quality of intensity.”
and
Aldous Huxley wrote: ‘The right to the pursuit of happiness, is nothing else than the right to disillusionment phrased in another way.’
There is nothing that has ceased to make sense to me than the illusory “pursuit of happiness.” I think this is one of the reasons I am fascinated by people’s definition of what happiness looks/feels like - which, more often than not, are responses that are conditioned, influenced by a myriad of things - significant of which is capitalism.
Anyway, read this.
(I am well aware that anyone can find quotes to justify a stance they have.)
Personality (noun) - the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character.
Do you know what your personality (sans performance) is? Is your personality something that has shaped itself from your environment since birth or is it something you have actively worked on? Also and because I think it is important to consider, the personality you portray and/or have curated for social media spaces, how representative of you is it? I am curious because I see people who seem to believe that being constantly angry online or being a pedantic nitpicker is a personality.
I like to believe I have worked on my personality but as I have come to realise, knowing better =/= doing better. And while the pursuit of happiness is not a goal for me, I am thinking that I have a goal to be more of myself - whatever form that takes.
I was looking for a picture in my emails from 2009/2010 because of the whole “Decade is over” trend and of course I had to read some of those 2005 - 2010 emails. Sweet Nostalgia. This rose coloured glasses view.
Who was I? And where are all these people I was emailing? It was like an episode of “Ghosts of Ciiku’s Past”. I remain hilarious I must admit. I still maintain that email is my most favourite means of communication. It allows me to lay my thoughts out, be as verbose as I need to be and there is usually no pressure for a response. Here is to writing more emails friends.
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Choose yourself often friends.