Holden on constructing the self

“The way I see it, a lot of us (or people, because I’m not sure whether to involve myself in this) are trying to be righteous and saintly, but not without acknowledging some truth about being quite a bunch of nasty people with some kind of nasty, sorry past.

Now, my key word here is “some”, because not everything is acknowledged. We (again, I use this pronoun loosely) can see through ourselves perfectly, but we can also choose to leave a few things out in the midst of constructing a self that seems perfect, but because of a few acceptable imperfections. Or we can dilute the hard truths about ourselves, making them despicable but forgivable, justifiable.

Or we can be beasts, or devils, or saints. We can throw our faults around, or deny all of them, or accept all of them. Or we can accept all of them, but realise that some of them are simply too difficult to rationalise and hence, we toss it away, sometimes wondering why the stench of that trash continues to linger on us.

And then we are a perfect self; identified and unique. But to those who can see us, we’re just another product of society, no longer the person who came out of our mother’s womb.”