The Midweek Muse: A little inspiration to get you over the hump

This week's topic for creative expression is "The hidden self."  I have often wondered what is meant when people say that they need to find themselves.  Are we excavating what is already there or are building a new self? 

I do think when you suffer from depression that the core of yourself tends become obscured by the sadness.  When I am depressed it feels to me...like I am covered up by mounds of garbage...negative messages and feelings of hopelessness.  I am not my depression but outwardly this is how it may appear.  You wonder if anyone can find you in all the rubble. 

I also believe we have many selves...the self we show to the world...the self in dreams...the self of childhood memories...the self we foresee in the future and yes perhaps we also have a hidden self...the part of us we choose not to see.

I have some quotes below about this topic and I also have a creative exercise for you if you are game.

Let's examine our selves...past and present.

*  What made you happy as a child?  What makes you happy now?

*  Did you show your sadness as a child?  Do you show your sadness now?

*  What did you most want as a child?  What do you want most now?

*  When you were a kid did you have any idea that you would be the person you are today?

*  What would you tell your younger self if you could? 

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.
Friedrich Nietzsche

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.  But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.  ~Thomas Szasz, "Personal Conduct," The Second Sin, 1973

All men should strive
to learn before they die
what they are running from, and to, and why.
~James Thurber

It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.  ~Lucille Ball

"Know thyself?"  If I knew myself, I'd run away.  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Know thyself" - a maxim as pernicious as it is odious.  A person observing himself would arrest his own development.  Any caterpillar who tried to "know himself" would never become a butterfly.  ~André Gide, Nouvelles Nourritures