SELF:  The Wednesday Word #WednesdayWisdom

SELF:  The Wednesday Word #WednesdayWisdom

INTRO:  Who are you?  What makes you, you?  When did you first come in to being?  Where are you?  How are you?  Today we look at all of that!

WORD: Self  (noun, adjective, and verb)

DEFINITION of self:

noun

  1. a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from others, especially considered as the object of introspection or reflexive action.
    “our alienation from our true selves”

adjective

  1. (of a trimming or cover) of the same material and color as the rest of the item.
    “a dress with self belt”

verb

  1. BOTANY
    self-pollinate; self-fertilize.
    “a variety that selfs itself loses lots of vigor in the progeny”

ETYMOLOGY of  self:

Old English self, seolf, sylf “one’s own person, -self; own, same,” from Proto-Germanic *selbaz (source also of Old Norse sjalfr, Old Frisian self, Dutch zelf, Old High German selb, German selb, selbst, Gothic silba), Proto-Germanic *selbaz “self,” from PIE *sel-bho-, suffixed form of root *s(w)e-, pronoun of the third person and reflexive (referring back to the subject of a sentence), also used in forms denoting the speaker’s social group, “(we our-)selves” (see idiom).

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

[attributed to Alan Watts, who did often use the image in this sense in his talks, if not in these exact words]

Its use in compounds to form reflexive pronouns grew out of independent use in Old English. As a noun from early 14c.

Self:  The Wednesday Word ACTION IDEAS:

We have some questions to answer.  Remember how we started?

  • Who are you?
  • What makes you, you?
  • When did you first come in to being?
  • Where are you?
  • How are you?

As you go in to answer these questions, I’d like to offer you the following quote from the poet Rumi,

You are not a drop in the ocean; you are the entire ocean in a drop.”