A middle-aged GI Joe presents himself as confident in an advanced level of communication that is somewhat uncomfortable for the likes of us ordinary folks. But when you delve into the depth of experience, he is as vulnerable as any of us. That is the level where we seem to connect holistically.
The best value GI Joe had demonstrated is honesty. Honesty makes perfect. I once defined perfection as the ability to know and accept own strengths and weaknesses, the person you are.
We are not talking about the virtue of moral character although it is the objective of being true to oneself. We are talking about reality and one's ability to cope and be contented with his/her reality.
Reality consists of what is true between time and place, the intersection between what we know or don't know about ourselves and the demands of our material environment.
To cope with that reality one has to dig into how well we know ourselves. However, the trouble with this question places the mentality of an age against the expectation of time.
In here young people are encouraged to liberate themselves from the norms of the old time of culture and tradition. And their expectation of the modern time had conditioned them to endure competitions of the material environment.
Liberation is the material freedom to do one wishes, dreams or desires. It is not valid because of its subjective nature that is conditioned by addiction or influenced by popular opinions.
However, this reality is distorted between time and material expectations. It is a distorted view of ourselves. Competitions condition us to be the best at everything, but our reality is not what our time expects. And this is the distorted gap, the dark place that some are not able to cope with.
You see, we can't be perfect at everything. Instead we can be perfect when we accept what we have and who we are. And the reality is good and bad; right and wrong. Perfect is able to know, accept and trying to live an honest life.
You might not be able to survive in our world if you haven't done wrong or know what wrong is. Besides, Jesus may not exist if we didn't sin. So perfection in a sense that one knows everything or hasn't committed a sin is a subjective abstract.
The demand of time is determined by the materialistic nature of the economy. When we perform materialistically according to the demand of time, we discover that some things about ourselves are not all material. And these aspects make up the social consequences in disappointment, embarrassment, hurting and so on that drive some of us to despair and suicidal thoughts.
For humans, the liberal demand of the material needs something objective to fall back into. But the younger generation is not equipped to cope with this distorted gap. Instead, some have attempted to cover it up with abstracts that only deteriorate their condition in a spiral.
This is the liberal view of the material. When one doesn't have what it takes to succeed, the nature of competitions would have him/her dug up dirt among blame and bullying to tarnish a competitor. The distorted gap is covered with subjective abstracts giving rise to social consequences.
And you see, we are covering up that distorted gap with rubbish and filth. And that is also honest about ourselves. It adds to aspects of our character hence digging up dirt, blame and bullying. When we do these things to others, it merely proves how inadequate and distorted we are. We do it to ourselves because we don't know who we really are. We are not that perfect a liberal person expects of our material environment.
And this adds another value to our reality. Humbleness is accepting the fact that we might be good at some things, but we are not competing against others to show how good we are.
When we become humble and honest with ourselves, we accept the gap between time and material demands relating to ourselves. We deal with ourselves by understanding how we feel and leading to know how we function. It is when we accept this of ourselves that others will find it acceptable to know us too.
If we are humble, we are not pressured to be someone we are not. We accept our weakness and carry on living an honest life.
If someone doesn't like you for reasons unknown to yourself, it is not your problem. Your problem is not knowing yourself. But you are not expected to know yourself fully at a young age. When you know yourself that you have a fair idea why other people may or may not like you.
Our liberal materialism has advanced the material without a safety net to fall back on.
Another value to our character is Respect. By respecting ourselves is not subjecting us to abuse or bullying. When we have Respect, Humility and Honesty, people will also have respect honour for us.
When we respect ourselves, we are not likely to bully or abuse or suffer despair or have suicidal thoughts.
Under the mode of our material economy, our environment demands us to be perfect, be rich, be pretty or easy on the eyes and know everything. That is a subjective abstract. We are real human beings and human beings have problems. It is knowing ourselves, how we feel and continuing to live an honest life amidst our weaknesses that make us perfect humans.