Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Journal #29 - Whitman's Self

I understand why it took so long for Walt Whitman to write Leaves of Grass. I think that your transcendental self is who you are, not necessarily what you do. I think it is hard to totally comprehend something like this because I am not sure if everybody knows exactly who they really are. Transcendental self is not defined by the sports or activities you are in, or the jobs you have had. It is truly who you are under the surface. I think that sometimes people see the transcendental self. People like my parents and my siblings definitely see me actually being myself. My friends are also like that, but I know that my transcendental self is not always the version of me that everyone sees. I know at school especially, I do not act the same all the time. For example, I am much more quiet at school than I am at home or when I'm with my friends. I do not really like to volunteer during class to answer questions and stuff like that partly because I just don't want to, but also because sometimes I am afraid of embarrassing myself if I answer wrong. I like the fact that you do not always know people as much as you think you do. If we all acted as our "true" selves all of the time, then you would never have to really take the time to get to know people. I hope that I semi understood what transcendental self means. It is really difficult to blog about this topic because, I myself do not totally understand it. I did like this though because it actually makes you think.  I think that it is impressive also that Walt Whitman was able to write about this kind of stuff because it is very hard to wrap your mind around. Overall, I would rather not think about this stuff though because it is kind of weird.

No comments:

Post a Comment