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Quote by Jandy Nelson

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When the World Tips Over

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Jandy Nelson
Jandy Nelson

Jandy Nelson is an American writer known for her young adult literature, which often delves into the emotional and identity struggles of adolescence, resonating with readers across generations. more

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“The equivalent of humans searching for their “real selves” is small cats chasing their tails. For it seems to me that there is no “real self”. We humans are ever-shifting, dynamic entities and not unchangeable, rigid selves. And even if there were a kind of centrum within us that we could call an “inner self”, we would never reach down to it, because of our natural biases about what we are and what our place in the world is. When we look in the mirror, we don’t see what we are, but we see what we want to be. Yet, as elusive as the search for self is, so clear is what we have to do on earth: to love and take care of each other. Life is too short and too miraculous to waste it on something other than love and joy!The equivalent of humans searching for their “real selves” is small cats chasing their tails. For I believe that there is no “real self”. We humans are ever-shifting, dynamic entities and not unchangeable, rigid selves. And even if there were a kind of centrum within us that we could call an “inner self”, we would never reach down to it, because of our natural biases about what we are and what our place in the world is. When we look in the mirror, we don’t see what we are, but we see what we want to be. Yet, as elusive as the search for self is, so clear is what we have to do on earth: to love and take care of each other. Life is too short and too miraculous to waste it on something other than love and joy!”

“Hume, Huxley, and other "immanent " psychologists, tried to identify the conception with a mere generalisation, so making no distinction between logical and psychological thought. In doing this they ignored the power of making judgments. In every judgment there is an act of verification or of contradiction, an approval or rejection, and the standard for these judgments, the idea of truth, must be something external to that on what it is acting. If there are nothing but perceptions, then all perceptions must have an equal validity, and there can be no standard by which to form a real world. Empiricism in this fashion really destroys the reality of experience, and what is called positivism is no more than nihilism. The idea of a standard of truth, the idea of truth, cannot lie in experience. In every judgment this idea of the existence of truth is implicit. The claim to real knowledge depends on this capacity to judge, involves the conception of the possibility of truth in the judgment.”

“There is a theory that watching unbearable stories about other people lost in grief and rage is good for you – may cleanse you of your darkness. Do you want to go down to the pits of yourself all alone? Not much. What if an actor could do it for you? Isn’t that why they are called actors? They act for you. You sacrifice them to action. And this sacrifice is a mode of deepest intimacy of you with your own life.”

“Symbolic interactionists are convinced that the self is a function of language. Without talk there would be no self-concept. "We are not born with senses of self. Rather, selves arise in interaction with others. I can only experience myself in relation to others; absent interaction with others, I cannot be a self- I cannot emerge as someone. To the extent that we interact with new acquaintances or have nover conversations with significant others, the self is always in flux. This means there's no "real me"- an etched-in-stone Em Griffin inside my body waiting to be discovered or set free.”