Life is a practice of reconciling self-nature, otherness and group nature.

born human, walking with beasts

Featuring raw essense of charm in our spectacular collection of long sleeve off the shoulder prom dress. Don’t miss the hot sale of our latest collections!

self-nature is not only inborn but also a character that needs to be slowly cultivated. As long as a person chooses to live, he will encounter conflicts and contradictions between self-nature, other nature, and group nature. The sign of a person's maturity is to make self-nature manifest naturally based on reconciling the contradictory relationship between self-nature, otherness, and group nature.

there are still many questions to think about in the future--

what is the difference between people and animals in terms of self-nature, otherness, and social nature?

is it because people constantly refine the self-nature and reconcile the relationship between the self-nature and the other nature and the group nature, to climb to the top of the food chain?

when a person is reduced to an animal, is it because the group nature conceals the self-nature, or is the self-nature masking the group nature?

is it true that when a person opposes self-nature, otherness, and group nature, he undermines the wisdom of being a man?

is group nature a good medicine to resolve the contradiction between self-nature and other nature? Or is the development of self-nature the better way out for people?

my predicament and way out   Marcus (Markus) and Beishan (Kitayama) propose that East Asians have self-construction of interdependence (emphasizing relevance and interdependence between individuals and others), while North Americans have independent self-construction (emphasizing individual separation and independence).

however, local psychologists do not recommend a simple cross-cultural comparison to distort the psychology and behavior of Chinese people. for Chinese people, the boundary between self and others is not fixed, but flexible and changeable. it can even be seen as an important means of self-improvement. Yang Zhongfang points out that the social structure of "individual orientation" in the West determines that they take independent individuals as units and value individual freedom, rights, and achievements. therefore, the clearer the boundaries between themselves and others, the better. The social structure of China's "social orientation" determines that the boundaries between individuals and others are not necessarily clear, but that their boundaries can accommodate others and the groups to which they belong. In this way, the relationship between oneself and the group becomes several concentric circles.

to unify the concept of the individual self, relational self, and collective self, and to further clarify the relationship between them, we divide the Chinese self-structure into two parts: the ego and the larger ego: "ego" refers to the characteristics that distinguish the individual from others in a specific social situation; "Big self" refers to the inclusive self-defined by the group to which the ego belongs (such as family, organization, country, etc.). Usually, the ego and the larger ego often have different value pursuits-the ego wants to pursue individual uniqueness and independence, while the larger ego wants the ownership and integration of individuals, so there are often frictions and contradictions between the two. Considering that the growth and socialization of Chinese people can be regarded as a process of moral development-the individual transcends and transforms the ego to the integration of the ego and the greater self until it becomes an ideal figure for the unity of man and nature. Therefore, only when the Chinese can flexibly and moderately change the boundary between the ego and the larger self according to the situation so that the inner requirements of the ego can be properly expressed and realized under the limitation of the larger self, they will be satisfied with both the ego and the larger self at the same time.

more importantly, Chinese traditional culture also provides people with the wisdom to solve the dilemma of the big and small-the Doctrine of the mean, thus educating people to take the internal requirements of the individual as the starting point and the basis of fundamental value. let internal requirements be properly expressed and realized under specific circumstances and restrictions. Therefore, meeting the needs of the big and small at the same time in a balanced and moderate manner constitutes the basis for the establishment of Chinese people's ideal self-esteem, which we call "appropriate self-esteem".

looking for an ideal self-esteem  

proper self-esteem is a kind of self-esteem based on meeting the needs of the self appropriately and appropriately. It is different from special self-esteem (its self-worth depends on meeting the needs of the ego and obtaining high self-evaluation through the excessive pursuit of the ego's uniqueness), and it is also different from compromise self-esteem (its self-worth is based on infinite catering to the needs of the larger self. High self-evaluation is obtained by satisfying the larger self and suppressing the ego). It is also different from considering self-esteem (its self-worth is based on maximizing the need to meet the needs of the big and small at the same time and obtaining high self-evaluation by deliberately meeting the needs of the big and small to the maximum).