The Self and the Context of Selfhood (Module 1 & 2)

Do we really understand ourselves? 

    How we see and understand ourselves is unique and relative. How I see and understand myself is different than how you see yours. But what is common to all of us is that our selfhood is an ongoing process that may change and improve over time. And there will always be external factors that will contribute to constructing our selfhood through social interactions.  

But how do we see ourselves?

    There are different perspectives about the self. There is the self-concept, self-identity, self-esteem, and personality. How we understand our own attributes (self-concept) and how we are different from other human beings (self-identity) are all perspectives about the self influenced by our social interactions. 

    The conceptualization of ourselves is not solely dependent on how were are biologically made. How we behave cannot be anchored exclusively to the biological makeup of an individual. Society will have its part in the conceptualization of ourselves through our continuous social interactions with other individuals. We did not exist with innate self, but rather in our nature of being sociable individual, we have gathered and accumulated experiences, knowledge, and concepts that define how we establish ourselves. From this, we consider how we want to behave, design, and project ourselves, both inward and outwardly. 

Fig 1. Drawing the Self by RC Patani

    In this module, we were tasked to visualize our own concepts of self for a male and a female. We need to identify the biological components and the different social perceptions that contribute to and influence the construction of the self. Below is what I have accomplished for the said activity. I have identified the various body parts that are indicators of the selfhood of a male and a female. Along with that, I have also indicated the multiple meanings and representations each body part implies. Most of what I pointed out are based on what I see and know society dictates, while others are my personal identification and connotations. Nonetheless, I have seen how my experiences and social interactions have influenced how I see and give meaning to the different body parts of a male and female I have drawn in making the activity.

Reflection:

We have our nature, that is the biological makeup we are born into, but overtime, we are nurtured through our experiences and social interactions. All of these have contributed to the context of our selfhood.