Between the created and the given self

Usep Abdul Matin ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 07/01/2009 8:43 AM  |  Opinion

I read the reports on Michael Jackson’s death with the heart of a fan and the eye of a critic. As a fan, I must say that the soul of Jacko is still alive. This is evidenced by the fact that both Jacko’s VCDs and CDs in Jakarta’s music stores sold out after his death.

In addition, Jacko-maniacs in Indonesia, such as dancer Adam Jackson and singer Imaniar, have obviously been replicating Jacko’s dancing techniques since they were children.

As a critic, I see that, throughout his life, Jacko strived to answer two conjoined questions he thought lie at the heart of our dreams with the created self: what desire for self-representation motivates us and how should we handle it? According to the created self, we answer the first question by saying that self-representation motivates our desires to use technologies to reach happiness.

We can change our unhappiness by what we buy – like cosmetic surgery. This commercial remedy is a medicine that meets certain criteria for the positive resolution of dreams of the created self.

That enhancement technologies are used as medication for such social problems is an unavoidable reality.

For example, the pharmaceutical industry sells Paxil to a doctor. The doctor, then, prescribes Paxil saying that this medicine is beneficial for social phobia. This medicine and other kinds of enhancement technologies are financially and morally costly.

This happened, for instance, to Elvis Presley, who died on his bathroom floor with enhancement technologies such as Aventyl, Elavil and Sinutab lacing his system.

But we should not treat our social problems through medicine, but by changing the created self to something more compatible to the given self.

We should look inward not outward to experience a meaningful life. We must define this inwardness as the real nature of human beings. We can be happy if we concern ourselves not only with our physical performances in our ordinary lives (work, family and fame) but also, and more importantly, with our spiritual beliefs and practices.

We should treat ourselves meaningfully by including our religious commitments in our treatments through our self-clinical conversations.

For instance, we need to ask ourselves a kind of diagnostic question, like: Is my religion or faith helpful to me in handling my problems? If the answer is yes, we should keep encouraging our religious commitments by asking ourselves a therapeutic question, like: What can we do to support our faith or religious commitment?

This self-clinical conversation might lead to better decisions about treatment that will support us in keeping our religious commitments and adhering to our given self.


The writer is a lecturer at UIN Jakarta

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