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I was contemplating today the way in which I interact with other people trying to analyze my motives. Most intriguing to me are the moments in which I interact with those I do not know as opposed to those I am very close to. I have found that more often than not I act in a manner that has been defined by myself. Or at least I would like to think that I take the time to observe my own life and decide the manner in which I would like to behave. I must honestly consider that perhaps most of what I see as my self-defined code of behavior is adapted from the forced roles placed upon me by society.
Perhaps what I am more trying to determine is, how often do I truly think for myself instead of swallowing what others tell me? This is brought to mind by the discussions of the role of medieval women in my Gender in Camelot class. We have discussed that medieval women had little political power compared to their male contemporaries and they had fewer ways of disclosing their dissatisfaction with their governing system (nobility specifically which most noble women were hesitant to criticize as this was a system that kept them out of the fields with the peasants) as a majority of women could not read or write. Furthermore, of those that could read and write even fewer could read and write in Latin, which was considered one of the major languages of scholarship. All of this history was basically a wake up call to myself in which I needed to examine my own thought patterns and my own life and see how much of it I was living for myself and not for the way the rest of the world sees me. I don't suppose there is any easy way to try and measure this that would come out anywhere akin to accurate. But I do not consider this line of thinking to be a waste of time because it is only if I ask these questions and examine myself constantly can I hope to be true to myself.
Perhaps what I am more trying to determine is, how often do I truly think for myself instead of swallowing what others tell me? This is brought to mind by the discussions of the role of medieval women in my Gender in Camelot class. We have discussed that medieval women had little political power compared to their male contemporaries and they had fewer ways of disclosing their dissatisfaction with their governing system (nobility specifically which most noble women were hesitant to criticize as this was a system that kept them out of the fields with the peasants) as a majority of women could not read or write. Furthermore, of those that could read and write even fewer could read and write in Latin, which was considered one of the major languages of scholarship. All of this history was basically a wake up call to myself in which I needed to examine my own thought patterns and my own life and see how much of it I was living for myself and not for the way the rest of the world sees me. I don't suppose there is any easy way to try and measure this that would come out anywhere akin to accurate. But I do not consider this line of thinking to be a waste of time because it is only if I ask these questions and examine myself constantly can I hope to be true to myself.
