This has been kind of an ongoing talk between my roommate and I. I've noticed that over the past few years I have begun to look inward more and more. Compared to when I was in high school I feel like I rarely did this.
Is it weak to look inward? Is it weak to be unsure of oneself? Or is it completely the opposite? These are the sort of questions we have been throwing around.
We've been noticing how people almost distinctly fall into categories based on this subject.
I'm not firm in my stance but I'm leaning towards it being more healthy to look inward often and ask yourself why you do things. But maybe this leaning is simply to justify my own behavior.
I read Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise over winter break and really enjoyed it. It is up there with my favorite books without a doubt. The main character looks inward frequently and despite being a wreck at times concludes with this at the novel's end:
There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youthyet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams. Butoh, Rosalind! Rosalind!...
"It's all a poor substitute at best," he said sadly. And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed.... He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. "I know myself," he cried, "but that is all."
"It's all a poor substitute at best," he said sadly. And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use to the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he had passed.... He stretched out his arms to the crystalline, radiant sky. "I know myself," he cried, "but that is all."
this could be the truth.
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