Self Mythology

This week a person near and dear to me used a particular term in a rather peculiar way … which I feel is at least odd, which I do not subscribe to, and which also seems confusing and misguided (from my point of view). Yet I cannot call it “wrong“, judging by what I can document from terms in modern usage:

This modern usage of the term is in contrast to the classical usage, which simply means (something like) incapable of being divided. I feel I understand this modern usage, but I find it odd nonetheless. This modern usage is not completely new and perhaps also not completely improved just recently. For example: the term is featured in one of my favorite movies from about two decades ago:

Ironically, this movie seems to emphasize how strongly outcomes for individuals are actually much more interdependent on one another rather than they are independent of one another. This is also something I came to realize a long time ago — yet which seems to contradict the “self-made” ideal so strongly held by many (especially Americans).

I have a hunch that our own languages predispose us to think of such a “self mythology” — as if we ourselves exist, as if we could rely upon our selves to continue to exist, as if it were impossible to deny our own existence. I do not mean to deny my own existence, but I do find it rather odd to think that maintaining my own existence might be undeniable. In contrast, I consider it difficult to fathom how to deny that I will at some point no longer exist, or that once upon a time I did not exist yet, and so on. I also do not consider myself to be “self-made”, unless perhaps I were to consider my environment to be a part of myself … yet this is where language sort of “gets in the way” and forces me to recognize boundaries between myself and the rest of the world.

See also “Inter-Reliance, Self-Dependence & Responsibility” and also the “about” description on the homepage of http://wants.blog