August 1, 2024

I AND YOU

August

What is important to me? Where do I want to go? Then make the small decisions! J.K.

 

I AND YOU

“Three qualities you associate with me,” is what a friend wished from her guests for her fortieth birthday. An interesting variety of words were brought together – some as expected, others surprising.

Who am I? Who am I for you?

One cannot clarify such questions alone. What I expect of myself is perhaps very different from what others value in me. Yes, even more: how often something about ourselves is revealed to us in an experience with another person.

“Language, self-mastery ,and even one’s own identity are not formed unless there is a counterpart present,”
states the philosopher and theologian Johannes Hartl.

We develop our personality in relationship to other people! And so, Martin Buber is most probably simply right:

“A person becomes the I through the Thou.”

Fotos: Andrea Guariso, Emilia Reich; Schönstatt