#entity

God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity. ↗

— Ralph Ellison

#god #identity #love #art

The music we listen to may not define who we are. But it’s a damn good start. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#music #music

Boys will be boys, that's what people say. No one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether. We are to stifle the same feelings that boys are encouraged to display. We are to use gossip as a means of policing ourselves -- this way those who do succumb to sex but are not damaged by it are damaged instead by peer malice. Girls demand a covenant because if one gives in, others will be expected to do the same. We are to remain united in cruelty, ignorance, and aversion. Or we are to starve the flesh from our bones, penalizing the body for its nature, castigating ourselves for advances we are powerless to prevent. We are to make false promises then resist the attentions solicited. Basically we are to become expert liars. (p. 65) ↗

— Hilary Thayer Hamann

#girls #hamann #identity #masks #sexuality

Perhaps it's impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be. ↗

— Orson Scott Card

#pretend #being

I hate how I don't feel real enough unless people are watching. ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#reality #real

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get. I to the world am like a drop of water That in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself: So I, to find a mother and a brother, In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#division #identity #unity #unity

Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#individuality #mediocrity #soul #individuality

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#hispanic-american #identity #latina #latina-american #latino-american

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are. ↗

— Madeleine L'Engle

#courage #identity #courage

Throughout our times with Christopher [therapist] we were encouraged to work together at communicating on the inside. He pointed out that it would be good for us all to listen-in when an alter was telling his/her story - that it's now safe, no harm will come to us from telling or from knowing. There was once a time when it was very important that we didn't know what had happened; that knowing meant danger or being so overwhelmed with pain and grief that we wouldn't survive. But now it was different. We're safe and strong, and our goal now are to uncover the grisly truth of what's happened to us, so that it's no longer a powerful secret. We can look at it and face the past for what it is - old memories of old events. Today is now,and we can choose to live a different way and believe different things. We were once powerless and vulnerable, but now we were in a position to make choices. We had control over our life. ↗

— Carolyn Bramhall

#childhood-abuse #dissociation #dissociative-identity-disorder #memories #mental-health