Telos Journal Edition One August 2013 | Page 8

We can never fully appreciate and get hold of the synthetically constructed self precisely because we believe the messages within social advertisements without knowing why we do or whose they even are. We can gain a better understanding of these messages by exploring what we really like. And we do this by trying new things, discovering new places and ideas, and keeping ourselves open enough to receive serendipitous occasions. Finding wholeness in a fragmented world is not accepting or submitting to the status quo. It’s giving equal consideration, respecting virtues, and risking being labeled an ‘idiot’ despite the anxious consequences. Even though anxiety creates a sense of selffragmentation, we should know that we always have access to wholen