understanding yourself

attempt to describe the word 'understand'. one of the meanings of 'understand' is 'to grasp the meaning'. Meaning you have to understand the meaning. another meaning of 'understand' is is 'to interpret in a number of possible ways'. means to understand the word 'understand' you have to understand that there is more than 1 understanding of anything you'd like to understand. meaning you have more than one meaning to anything you'd like to find the meaning of. to understand life, you have to find the meaning of life. to understand yourself you have to find the meaning of yourself. what do you mean by 'yourself'? you could ask the question to the questioner: what do you understand from the meaning of 'yourself'? 'yourself' means yourself. I understood this by attempting to find the meaning of what it means to be myself. what does it mean to be myself?

When we question this much, we think we understand the meaning. but i guess we get more confused. and give up someway. and when we revisit this issue, we think since we've given x hrs of thought to this. we understand the meaning of life. one of the greatest fallacies in life is in thinking that understanding of life if proportionate to age. at least thats what i think. sometimes i think the older i am, the more i understand. at other times, the older i am, i think i am more confused about life than when i didnt start thinking about it. my observation tells me, age is not proportionate to understanding. but rather, it is proportionate to belief. the older you are, the more ingrained your belief towards a subject matter is. meaning your understanding could be more true to facts, or more untrue. the intensity is higher, but nobody knows if its true or false. whats true?

the irony and cliche thing (at least it is cliche to me now) is often put this way: you will only attain true understanding when you understand that there are many answers/perspectives that can be offered. sometimes that sounds to me to be as good as not knowing anything. at others it entails meaning profound enough to make me 'feel' enlightened for a long moment. almost the kind of motivation for you to do anything after reading a self help book?!

any good essay according to my JC teacher entails a balancing argument. especially an argumemtative essay. also a good essay can never be complete without a good conclusion/ending. i dont know how to give the other side of the argument to a piece of writing that argues that: the only truth is when you understand that there is no 1 definitive stand, (which by the way is another major no no for essay writing according to the same person). i also have no major conclusion/ending for this.

i shall end here. because i have to go back and study 'strategy'.