ABOUT ALL PARTS MATTER - THE SERIES

I WAS COMPELLED TO WRITE THE SERIES

It is about we humans and life long struggle to know our true selves and truly love that true self, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Socrates summed simply, "Know Thyself.” Plato, a student of Socrates, who wrote down what socrates said, later reinterpreted it mean "know your soul". Later it was further reinterpreted by others to mean that one could acquire knowledge of the self studying the universe, or knowledge of the universe by studying the self. Aristotle his own interpretation, "knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."

I recognized late in my life that I had played many roles, except the role of who I truly am.  While others may describe who you are, rarely do we fully take account of who we are. We often describe ourselves by revealing those parts we want people to know and avoiding  other parts. And the parts we reveal very likely have been sourced from what others say of us or from whom we wish we were.  The parts that create the sense of self (negative and positive) are mostly acquired from external sources as we evolve in life. We put these parts together unconsciously to create an image of self, never asking ourselfs, does each part belong to me. These parts are mostly unvisited until our later years.  Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley describes the process for self-identity (sense of self) as “individuals looking at the judgements of people they connect with during their social interaction activity rather than seeking the process for self-identity in solitude.”

My series, All Parts Matter, began with Volume One laying

The journeys to knowing yourself and turly loving yourself require an encounter with your soul. It is there where your unique, true self resides. It is your intended nature as created before birth. If you are aligned with the soul, you will have a sense of purpose, inner wholeness and spiritual fulfillment. This can lead to achieving a satisfying destiny.  However, as Carl Jung once wrote, people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul. And the older you get, the more terrifyingly true that becomes. Your ego is the main obstacle to aligning with your soul.

The Ego is one part of the psyche. The other parts are the unconscious and collective unconscious. The conscious, according to Jung, is comprised of the persona and the Shadow. The persona is what a person shows to the world. The Shadow is that which the person is ashamed and guilty about.