One of the focuses of chapter one–on God and relationships with God–caught me off guard somewhat, since we have not really tackled the subject within this class much as well as DH101 (except for last week when we spoke about Muslim Rage–although that still was more of a media-centered conversation). I have read a lot of Christian literature that resembles the ideas that Rettberg presented. I have often heard in order to experience growth it is necessary to reflect on the self as a whole, rather than solely the good or bad things, therefore, the concept of keeping a journal for confessional purposes rang somewhat familiar to me. One time, I heard a speaker mention that mega-church pastor Joel Osteen says that it is good to keep a diary of all the good things people say to you or about you and forget all the bad things. I understand the reasoning for something like this, although I believe we should not have these types of “filters” (like Rettberg mentioned in chapter two) on ourselves.
I found this Calvin and Hobbes comic that helps illustrate my idea further; Calvin sees himself as perfect and in no need of change. I think we can all agree that we are not perfect and that we all could improve in at least one way or another in our life. I apologize if I am sounding preachy in this post, but I believe the idea of looking at ourselves with #nofilter is very important. Most of us can probably testify that we have either taken a selfie or edited a picture of us to make us look better than we may actually appear–no one takes low angle shots for a reason. This all relates to an idea we have touched on in class discussion about how we display the best version of ourselves. But is this “best version” of ourselves truthful? Or is it no version at all?
I completely agree when you say that we have to look at ourselves with “no filter” because we, as humans, will always have something to change! And that isn’t a bad thing. No matter how hard we try to be perfect, it is not possible. For certain people, it is important to focus on all the good things, though, and writing a diary of all the “good things” can be affective. I know a lot of people who are depressed and constantly JUST look at themselves in the “no filter” way and are consistently criticizing themselves. There always always always has to be a balance!
Hmm… Yeah, you’re right. There are probably a lot of people that are already criticizing and examining themselves, possibly to a very unhealthy extent. There definitely has to be balance. This self-critical view of oneself is almost like another filter on its own.
It’s so important to reflect on ourselves as a whole, but I think filters come about especially because of competition and societal pressure i.e. the need to constantly pitch ourselves against other people. On social media, I am guilty of not only filtering my profile, but comparing my profile to others- and that to me is way more damaging than any introspection. Sometimes I wish I would stop comparing myself to others but I can’t seem to!