Spring's flower

I've been thinking a lot lately. I mean, I think more than ever (because "thinking" is indeed my hobby).

And normally I get my source of thinking from my readings. You name it, Wikipedia, Blogs, News, Magazine, even people's status on Facebook!

But I was quite taken aback with my journal reading recently. You can access it here.

For a speaker of other language (SOL) like me, whose English is merely sufficient for daily confab, the lexicon used kinda baffling me. But I managed to make sense of it to certain degree. And what I got from it was:

"This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible"

Long story short, it argues that people nowadays are losing the sense of solitude, the capacity to be alone.

It reminds me much to Mary's say in Pride and Prejudice (a novel by Jane Austen)

"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."

I can't help but thinking that we humans are much bound to vanity. We care so much of what people think about us, and thus left dependent to visibility. It's no longer a desire. It's a NEED. To be visible, to be acknowledged by others.

How many of us, can sit still without submitting to the urge of internet, handphone and so on?

In fact, I myself find it difficult to sit and do my reflection without going to the net, checking my phone (to see if my inbox is full), etc.

It's such a pain to admit because our egoistic nature won't give in. But come back to reality, we indeed (well, almost) can't live ALONE.

I am so much endorsing constructivist model, especially Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. I believe that in order to learn more, we have to interact with other (this explains why we need LANGUAGE).

However, I do believe that sometimes we need SOLITUDE in order to come back to our inner self, and internalize everything that we've learnt in our social life. To reflect. To ponder upon.

I hate to think myself as vain. I don't need to be acknowledged by others that I'm pretty or intelligent, for it exposes me to INSECURITY. I want to stay confident, to be able to keep my chin up, and to know that I was created magnificently (we are created in HIS own image)... even without people telling me.

I need to strengthen my inner strength. People won't make me down unless if I allow them to.

-Miss B-