Fourth Form of Madness

To blog or not to blog – that is the question!

My husband set this site up for me over 3 weeks ago after I boldly stated, in a chardonnay induced haze, that I wanted to start blogging. Within the hour he had set it up. Within 3 weeks I had still not started. I was frozen with fear. Fear that what I wrote would not be good enough or even good (this raises the question for who? – but that is a whole different counselling session – hee hee). Did I have anything worthwhile to post? Why would I, such a private person by nature, wish to expose my thoughts on such a public forum? All these thoughts kept me residing in the land of inactivity – a nice place to visit but not to live.

With some introspection, I realised I was looking outside myself to validate myself. I was looking for outside indicators of my existence, my reason to be and to be the way I wanted to be. George Berkeley (1685-1753), an irish philosopher who worked, amongst other things, on resolving epistemological uncertainties about the external world, gave us subjective idealism – the view that nothing exists except ideas and minds (also known as Berkely’s immaterialism). If all we have to work with to connect us to the external world are our senses and that sensory information has to be perceived to formulate ideas about the world, then it is this perception, these ideas in the minds of perceivers that are real -appearances actually are the reality in this case. Therefore “Esse is Percipi” or “to be is to be perceived”.

However, you have no control over how you are perceived. This depends on the other person and their life experiences and mental processes and how they “mentally construct you” in their perceptions. Therefore, its not you they perceive, but an idea of you – their idea of you. I guess I now kind of seek solace in the fact that no one can know you like you! Therefore, you and only you, must find the answers to all the questions about yourself and existence in general. It is nice to listen to advice and not so nice to take criticism from others, but in the end these others are talking about different “ideas of you” – and you must navigate the path through to your essence.

Okay well that is my first log done and I feel released from the pressure of starting!