inside/outside

there is a self that exists for the world and a self that exists for oneself (and perhaps those who are very, very close). what is on the outside and easily visible to the world, most of us pay much attention to. we try to get into good schools and good jobs and develop good resumes. undoubtedly it takes much work on our parts to get there, and we mustn't begrudge ourselves this effort. absolutely not. however, just as we focus on the outside, so must we focus inward. there is much that goes on inside of us; there are many forces at play. there are virtues; there are vices; good feelings and bad; positive energies and negative. indeed there is much to understand, to get to know, to work on.

certainly, we could go on through our lives without giving this inner self a thought and not feel the rub of it. but if at all we are so aware that we can sense the goings on inside, it is incumbent upon us to make sense of the madness - is it not? just as there is a steady state to water that it ever attempts to return to, so is there a steady state of our mind that we must enable/empower it to achieve. and as there are molecules in the water, so are there different trains of thought in our mind that head in different directions. slowly, but steadily, we should address each one of these trains and bring it under our control and to steady state. perhaps we could kill several birds with one stone, though sometimes each bird may take several stones. regardless, it is critical that this process never stop. we may liken each of these little tasks to a homework assignment, and we can define our own internal abstractions of degrees and such. however we do it, we should understand that it is a project we must succeed on. after all, this is a degree we must obtain. and summa cum laude.

the ideal for growth of the self, then, should be that our inside and outside grow in unison. that, indeed, they become part of the same, not parts of a dichotomy.