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First Taught
I have to ask. What is dignity? Your personal level of respect? Knowing your values and what you will accept or not and how you treat others. Expectations. Conducting oneself with good values and respect for self and others. Composure, poise. An expectation we have of ourselves for “proper” behaviour, and that can vary between…
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Loving or Loved?
Where does all this concern for dignity come from? We want to be loved? Be loved without being the person who needs the love? Self-defeating situation, no? We are social creatures. Even the lone wolves seek out other lone wolves. Yes. Really all of human thought is a road map of humanities social nature. So…
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Does Dignity Enrich?
If you are not clear on what it feels like for you personally to love something, could you know if you were loved? If you never felt the overwhelming urge to clutch that teddy bear or blanket as a child, could you tell that someone loved you? You shine a light into the world. We…
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Returning to Our Center
They bemoan the high rate of divorce in today’s society, but what leads people to make such a radical decision? I would offer that it comes down to whatever delusion people subscribe to as a definition of respect. Dignity, as most people think of it, is an egotistical justification. They rationalize many things and do…
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So Much for Dignity
When I was a little kid, someone was making fun of me. I was ignoring them, thinking, “Well, I have my dignity.” Then someone tripped me and I thought, “So much for dignity.” This is one of my own mottos also. So much for dignity, and I leave it at that. Dignity is when someone…
Category: Dignity
We each of us have a sense of self, and I don’t mean a sense of image or dignity. We have a sense of wholeness and personal integrity. Does dignity as we are taught it enrich this? More awareness leads to more choices of behavior and more constructive outcomes, but what does the command to behave tell us other than, “You have no choice!”
Dignity as most people think of it is an egotistical justification. But there is another way to understand self outside of ideas of self-image and dignity. In returning to our center, the center of our consciousness and instincts, we will find a whole self. Can you be response able, and not identify with this inner self? Can you know love and intimacy if you can’t share this inner self with another? Can you trust a world of people who present themselves primarily and passionately as a collection of false fronts?
“Dignity is a mask we wear to hide our ignorance” Elbert Hubbard (American editor, publisher and writer, 1856-1915)
“Those who insist on the dignity of their office show they have not deserved it.” Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher and Writer, 1601-1658)