Developing Self-Awareness by Enriching It From Literature

Self-awareness is based on reflection and in knowing one's capabilities. Self is in constant change and never appears equally as the same as it has been. We can also reflect upon our self from a variety of sources such as other persons, movies, series, horoscopes and literature, wherein the latter has been created by men and women with deep insight with the possibilities of language and human characteristics.

When we consider the differences with the artistic expression of literature and movies, we find that one of the key differences is in that the literature explores the internal experiences of the characters with words, giving also the dialogue which the characters use to express those internal experiences in response, where in contrast the person watching a movie must deduce the internal experiences from a variety of external postures, thus focusing the individual's perception to study those postures. When we then think movies as a source for self-reflection, we can find deep existential themes and such, but when it for example comes to embody what is reflected in relativity with movies or television series, we find its orientation to be more on appearances, postures and emotional landscapes created through facial expressions, music, rapidly exceeding chain of events and tones of voice.

Literature leans more on the content rather than on its expression through postures. They are at their best in the field of the deepest existential questions and truths that fabricate the human experience such as the internal dialogue over the issues of mortality, the life and thoughts of deeply rooted wisdom of the ancient religious characters, and in such constructs of thought that together, although not expressed by the characters to each other, produces the chain of causality that leads to the end of the story, creating more detailed representations of the characters while doing so.

When we now compare these two different forms of artistic expressions, we find that the literature creates more a posteriori reflections from the characters than what must be deduced as the internal experiences of the characters postures in a priori. Thus, the use of literature in the creation of self-awareness can be considered as giving more firsthand knowledge of the human experience to live through with. What we read or watch is what we become aware of, including the exploration of the unknown sides of our own self. In literature we thus develop our own self-awareness in relativity with a posteriori knowledge created to the characters, wherein we develop with movies and television series our deductive skills of the internal experiences of characters and how we can display portraits of our own self, as the sub-conscious hardly makes distinction between fiction and reality.

Copyright © 2010 Henry M. Piironen

Henry M. Piironen is the author of "The Power of Transiency (How Thoughts Can Harness the Power of Life, the Universe and Everything)." To purchase this definitive book, visit Amazon Kindle Store now! Already read it? To purchase his other books, click here.

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