Whose Life Shall I Live?

As the school year is coming to a close I decided to review my blogs and figure out what I figured out this year.  Here is my biggest conclusion:

Whose Opinion Counts - Freedom or the System?

The system tells me that I am not good enough with just being myself and that I have to be someone else.  As I strive to be that other person I lose track of who I am and feel hollow which just reinforces the idea that I am not good enough and if I can only be like my idol (that person who is better than I am and who I want to be) then I will be happy.  Adding the arguments of Mumford, as I become more successful my life becomes more private and my relationships are increasingly commercially controlled.  The question of where I end and the system begin becomes pertinent.

From this foundation, the theme of taking responsibility can be integrated by its relationship to freedom.  Taking responsibility for my own actions and not blaming them on the system is anti-establishment.  It is much like growing up because once I am ready to accept the consequences of my actions I no longer need my parents to tell me what is right and wrong.  The metaphor can be extended to the system because I can then have morality and relationships independent of the system.  

Another anti-systemic tool is creativity.  I define creativity as expressing and developing the ideas expressed in the category Life (IX).  If I can figure out who I am I don’t need the system to tell me who I am, or who I should be and can be comfortable being myself.  The implication being that I don’t need to strive to be something I am not.  As Fanon said, if we want a European society we should let a European run our society for us because we won’t do as good a job.  Another line from Oscar Wilde is a young woman asking an older woman “what will they think of me” the response was “If we are only worried about what other people think of us what is the use of having our own thoughts?”  

The conclusion I have come up with is that the person whose opinion of me I worry about is the person who runs my life because to validate myself I have to be worthy in their eyes.  That person can be an authority figure, a loved one, God, our friends, and for a lucky few it is themselves.



Whose life shall I live
Mine or another’s
Is mine enough
It better be
It is all I have
And if I don’t choose mine
Then it won’t be enough
I will have wasted my life
In pursuit of another

If I search for another
I will not fight
For what I believe
Inaction will make me loose my beliefs
And I will soon die
I will have wasted my life
In pursuit of another

We are shown the good life
And on the way make sell a toe
Then a finger
It is never my fault
It is what I had to do
When we finally get there
I will have wasted my life
In pursuit of another

I see me as I think another sees me
I guess this by how they talk about other people to me
I become what others admire
I will have wasted my life
In pursuit of another

I can take responsibility
I can be free
I can create
I can express my individuality
I can worry about what I think of me
I will have spent my life
In pursuit of myself
Saying NO to the system.