“The ambiguity when the performance of self becomes self-destructive, or when performance of self becomes pathological. That gray area interests me as a poet because it’s so wrapped up in everyday life now that it’s almost mundane. So much of this performance is tied to feelings of worth and value; in essence, it becomes ongoing, an entire existence all on its own…”

On the “self” as a spectacle in “Jenny Xie Interviews Sally Wen Mao” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2019/01/jenny-xie-interviews-sally-wen-mao (Poetry Foundation; Jan 2019)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The ambiguity when the performance of self becomes self-destructive, or when performance of self becomes pathological. …" by Sally Wen Mao?
Sally Wen Mao photo
Sally Wen Mao 4
Chinese-born American poet

Related quotes

Paulo Coelho photo

“But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)
Context: You have to take risks … We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist — that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists — a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.

Nao Bustamante photo

“I’m really interested in reality TV as a format for storytelling, as a way of communicating humanity, of seeing ourselves, of seeing our scripted selves perform as ourselves. It’s simulacral, this removal of the self while performing the self in a quote-unquote real life situation…”

Nao Bustamante (1969) American artist

On her appearance on Bravo’s television show Work of Art in “INSIDE THE ARTIST’S STUDIO: NAO BUSTAMANTE” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/nao-bustamante-work-of-art-bravo in Interview Magazine (2010 Jun 11)

“A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 1.10 <!-- p. 32 -->
Source: The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: We do have to use our minds as far as they will take us, yet acknowledging that they cannot take us all the way.
We can give a child a self-image. But is this a good idea? Hitler did a devastating job at that kind of thing. So does Chairman Mao. … I haven't defined a self, nor do I want to. A self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to the child, finished and complete. A self is always becoming.

Alice Walker photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“When one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

"Guayaquil", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)

Peter L. Berger photo
Vanna Bonta photo

“When the personal worth of individuals is calculated only in money, sense of self becomes confused with financial net worth.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

State of the Art (2000)

Zbigniew Brzeziński photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: I’ve seen people who discovered a great meaning in their jobs and they became so absorbed in that that they didn’t have time to become self-centered. They loved their job. And the great prayer that anyone could pray at that point is: “O God, help me to love my job as this individual loves his or hers. O God, help me to give my self to my work and to my job and to my allegiance as this individual does.” And this is the way out. And I think this is what [Ralph Waldo] Emerson meant when he said: “O, see how the masses of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there, some great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality.” And this becomes a point of balance when you can forget yourself into immortality. You’re not so absorbed in self, but you are absorbed in something beyond self.

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo

“So true - when people see an absence of women in engineering, science and technology, then it becomes self-reinforcing.”

Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie (1977) Nigerian writer

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/15-quotes-from-chimamanda-adichie-that-have-change/
On Gender

Related topics