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tekirdag
Joined: 13 Jul 2005
Posts: 505
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 Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:19 am Post subject: |
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The mirror a foreigner is facing is a distorting mirror. The figure in front of him or her is not what one has expected to see. One becomes very cautious and carefully adjusts oneself to make a better image. It is not an easy job at all. Being a foreigner, I cannot satisfy myself with what I do. How could my eyes become so keen that I always see my own flaws? Not my eyes only, but also my ears. Before I came to Canada, I thought my English was quite good. I enjoyed my pronunciation and intonation, which won me the prize for the English Speaking Contest in my university. But now, when I hear my voice, I just hate it. If my ears have good reason to hate my mouth, my mouth also has good argument against my ears. How many times it missed the points of the jokes, and made the mouth too embarrassed to respond? How often the mouth had to ask to clarify the meaning not comprehended by the ears? My eyes cannot relax and trustfully look into the world either. How badly they see this new world. On the one hand they make a fuss of the trivial ordinary things which everybody takes for granted. On the other hand they overlook lots of important events and meaningful actions. |
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| The process of inner conflict may lead to great distress. It is not simply that my ears hate my mouth, or my mouth hates my eyes. The inner conflict inhabits my entire being. It makes me feel that my own "self" is falling apart. Now I have two "me"s inside myself. A "me" with whom I am familiar and with whom I feel connected. This is the "me" I enjoyed and was proud of. And I am still proud of it and would not let it go. The other "me" is a stranger. It is like a distorted figure which always appears whenever I am in the darkness of "foreignness." I cannot accept it since I do not like to. I cannot reject it either since it is part of my own self. My old half hates my newly discovered half. It is also the newly acquired value that fights against the old value in my old half. To regain peace and confidence, a re-organization or reshaping of self is needed. This process is threatening, as one has to alter one's own identity, in order to accept this reincarnation. |
from http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/articles/wu.html |
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briana74
Joined: 02 Jun 2009
Posts: 30
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| Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2009 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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aman, aman, 1973!
golightly, well said, thank you for the info provided. simply interesting! |
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