Be part of community; but foremost be individual

Be part of community; but foremost be individual

The ‘locations’ we take in life gives rise to ‘roles’ even as the ‘self’ adapts to form one’s ‘identity’. The location is the context of the ‘am ness’ of the self, and actions arising from this quadrant are spontaneous and vibrant. They are life positive. Actions acted out of ‘roles’ or from identity are adapted stances, and can be often frozen, irrelevant and meaningless.  For the identity is the persona – our personality that governs how we act within the confines of a role. Over structured, over crystalized, it can be immobilizing, un energizing  and life negative.

Individuation is the proximity to self, Personality a proximity to identity. Individuation is driven by the resonance to the psychological ‘location’ while personality is the over socialization  to ‘role’.

Just as a role creates the character and the script for the identity, the self is a responsiveness that comes from a location that is without a prescription for role.

The location offers actions from within, the role prescribes actions sanctioned from outside. The former is an action that springs from one’s essence, the latter that springs from one’s tradition and society. The first is bereft of judgment, the latter is laced with ‘beliefs’ and normativeness.

The person lives in duality within and outside. Within, is the evocation to act from self and location: outside the demands to act from prescribed tradition. The former is the ultimate freedom to be oneself; the latter is to be ‘appropriate’.

Individuation is personal: even an identity can be communal. It can be laced with religion, caste, creed, geography or institutional. The individual persona can and would be subordinate to communal identity. Here there is real danger for total merger of all the individual identity. Responsibility is lost and so is individual consciousness. The crowd creates the de-sensitisation. It is an illusion. There is no ‘humanity’ or ‘society’  or such collective nouns. The parts are lost in the whole.

For true consciousness one must move away from the crowd. Move away from being a Christian: find one’s Christ; move away from being a family member: connect with each one of its members. Be a part of the personal bond, not a linkage to an identity. In this lies the hope to be universal.

Be part of a community: merge not, but collage: foremost retain your individuation.