Identity and the Other

It just occurred to me after rereading Ryszard Kapuscinski’s “The Other” – that the fear of the other is fear of looking at oneself. Without the Other the self would need no defining and the more we expose ourselves to the Other the more multifaceted and interesting and vibrant we become. What a great way of looking at it.

Or put it this way: our own identity only exists through the existence of “other” – otherwise there is no reason to define yourself if there is no ‘setting apart FROM’.

Happiness

I love when John Tierney of the New York Times writes and his newest Science Section article of November 16th, 2010 is no exception. My favorite sentence in reference to happiness from the article is: “[...] the location of the body is much less important than the location of the mind [...]!”

How very true is that and still we love to travel and love to have ourselves transported, physically to places that ought to make us happy; and I'm the first to agree that there's nothing like standing IN nature and experiencing it - some might feel that way about art, a city or a restaurant.

But on the long run and on a much more practical level - the mind travels for free and can go where the body can't - we should all book more regular braincations.

I'll start right now by STOPPING to write...