Relation between man and the world involves interactions and conditions leading to-wards harmonious coexistence. In these relations, individuals multiply their resources and, being part of the bigger whole and anticipating its order and simplicity, co-create new image of the world. Different interests, ambitions, needs and abilities are integral part of these relationships. These conflicts are necessary for ongoing development of hu-mans, and they themselves undergo transformation along the way.
Man strives to achieve external unity with the world, as well as internal integrity. Forces active in this process complement one another, each of them shaping a new component of humanity. Lack of consent to one’s inner harmony is necessary for this development:
complementing contradictions determine the order of self-organising systems. At the same time, some degree of dynamic imbalance is indispensable (Łukaszewicz, 1994, p. 63).
Everyday experiences and endless natural and artificial, real and imagined contradic-tions provoke quescontradic-tions about humanity. This phenomenon is a derivative of answers to question about the origin of human consciousness (Laszlo, 2002, p. 40–42). These ques-tions, searching for meaning of life and reflection on human condition are some of the urgent problems of today’s world; the world struggling with a deepening crisis of values and degradation of spiritual life, deprived of reflection upon man and his potential for growth and self-creation.
Depending on the adopted criteria, mutual relations between man and the world reveal three attitudes towards learning. First — leaves people to themselves, assuming that the world formed by individuals shaped this way will always turn out to be “some”. Second approach assumes that people are shaped by their family, society and institutions, thus they are a product, material to be processed whereas parents and teachers are the “pro-ducers” (Olbrycht, 2002, p. 9–10). From the point of view of progressive self-creation, third approach is the most relevant as it assumes reflection upon man and what consti-tutes him, and thus leads to creating humanity — understood universally in the aspect of man’s presence in the world and engaging with others during present and future mutual interactions between himself and the world.
Humans do not live in a void: they exist and grow, constantly oscillating between “I” and
“you”, between their own individuality and their society, and the world. Therefore, our attempt to define self-creation leads us to the following sources: social (family, society, institutions), psychological (becoming of personal “I”) and, perhaps first of all, axiolog-ical. R. Schulz defined self-creation as: “1) product of objective conditions resulting from increasingly complex internal environment of humans; 2) effect of new requirements of individuals’ internal life; 3) result of currently approved value system” (Schulz, 1990, p.
238). This definition reveals the necessity of adopting multidimensional approach to self-creation process. Each of the above mentioned spheres of human existence (social, personal, axiological) has a different set of conditions and criteria that enable self-crea-tion. We will not analyse them in this article.
An initial stage of self-creation (though at the same time, parallel) is self-identification.
M. Gołaszewska lists the following main forms of self-identification: 1) self-identification through external forms of existence; 2) self-identification as a social role (“being as”);
3) self-identification through expressive behaviours (“being self”); 4) self-identification through implementation of ideas and values (“being in service of ideas”) (Gołaszewska, 1977, p. 164). Here, we can observe tension between the external and the internal, a pro-cess in which what is mine is reflected in the world, and the world, in turn, constantly enriches “me”.
In other words, manifesting living in a way to be able to keep balance between what is mine and what belongs to others and the world — this is the way towards self-creation.
We try to stay faithful to ourselves and, at the same time, we strive to transform ourselves and the world. Two foundational aspect intersect here: self-reflection and action, or an attempt to answer not only the question: Who am I?, but — maybe primarily — Who am I becoming? The questions that are so much needed and unique today.
While searching for meaning of his own life within the anthroposphere, man finds himself in different learning, acting and transcending situations (Gołaszewska, 1988, p. 100). They are subordinate to the situation paramount to man and his world — axiological situation. According to M. Gołaszewska, “both, the world and people are the source of values” (Gołaszewska, 1988, pp. 102,103). This directs our attention towards anthropological-axiological dimension of self-creation. It is particularly important and definitely less exposed than creative dimension understood as creative activity that transforms its subject; an activity which cannot be reduced to some general pattern or stereotype and which would be impossible without prior reflection on what is important for the subject. Therefore, in this dimension of self-creation, it is also very important to identify values deciding about the meaning of achievements and life goals of the subject.
In general, the normative dimension of self-creation forces us to investigate the issue of subjectiveness of individuals, their awareness, identity type and, in particular, the at-titude of freedom that leads to a sense of duty and responsibility for values they have encountered so far. This leads directly to self-transcendence connected with intense ex-periencing of the recognized values.
Man should manage the whole of his life and its assumed meaning in the process of exist-ing as ens per se (Gołaszewska) — as beexist-ing shaped also for others. Findexist-ing this meanexist-ing is tightly tied to evaluation. S. Kunowski writes the following: “... evaluation results from the ability to love and connect with the good and the truth in your experience, therefore spirituality may create the highest ideals of Good, Truth, Beauty and Holiness, and fol-low these ideals” (Kunowski, 1993, p. 189; see also: Sinitsyn, Hentonen, 2015, 278–279).
We need to emphasise that self-creation (forming of self) takes place in agathological and axiological perspective (Tischner, 2012, 61; Harvey, 1997, 15, 36–37; Wadowski, 2012, 101–122). This is connected with experiencing the drama of existence, which fo-cuses on a dilemma of choosing between good and evil in relationships with other hu-mans. Agathological perspective reveals ethical importance of choosing between good and evil, the latter understood in its radical variant as negation of good and opposing it, and in its relative variant, as choosing one good over the other, or affirmation of one good while rejecting another. This dilemma of choosing good is a challenge hu-mans cannot avoid in the self-creation process. Rejecting good means not only taking intentional actions against it, but also rejecting one’s personal wellbeing, even though it is not always obvious in the very moment of making the choice. Existential drama we experience is expressed in subtle struggles with ourselves, in acts where — apart from our own good — the benefit of “other” is also allowed to speak. So, the key de-cision is whether I want to integrate my own good with the good of “other” through
unconditional acceptance and neighbourly love, or will I strive to tie my good with the good of another person in a relationship of conditional acceptance and pragmatic love.
The second option blurs my vision of good of the “other”, as it is perceived from the per-spective of my own wellbeing.
In this publication, we present self-creation as conscious and intentional effort of a subject to internalise values and initiate life events and decisions he or she deems crucial. It is motivated by the desire for personal development that takes place through gradual realisation of potential (possible) “I”. This is connected with discovering and experiencing one’s own humanity more fully (Wąsiński, 2007, p. 48–55). To summarise, people search for meanings of their existence in the world (Popielski, 2007, p. 32), they desire inner transformation oriented towards vital values, first of all spiritual and sacral (Węgrzecki, 1975, p. 50–51).
It is impossible to think about people’s life and aspirations, without considering their attitude towards values. Even declaration that everything now is meaningless and eve-ryone can live according to their own rules, is also an expression of axiological position identified with one’s own logos. Such position is, however, separate from thinking in the categories of timeless Logos (Opoczyńska, 1999, p. 158–159). It is a relative answer to the question: Who and how am I supposed to be (Śleszyński, 1995, p. 99)? Efforts to-wards realisation of values recognised by the subject brings an existential depth to his or her life (Ablewicz, 2003, p. 234–237). The values define the meaning, and determine the goals people strive to achieve according to their imagined vision of self. Thus, the values are identified with discovering the things that are precious per se (Cencini, Ma-nenti, 2009, p. 96–99).
According to Maria Straś-Romanowska, man’s attitude towards the world and himself is expressed in his cognitive openness, in endless interpretative possibilities in his mind.
It is tightly connected with the need for personal fulfilment and development through updating one’s natural potential and... experiencing the ever deepening sense in life (Straś-Romanowska, 1997, p. 104). Therefore, this self-updating dimension of “I” can be scribed in the category of horizontal transcendence. Self-transcending dimension, de-termined by the rule of unity, is identified in the category of virtual transcendence. We refer it to the system of intersubjective whole with which man is in constant and dynamic relation. Self-transcending, seen as reaching “towards the other and others in a com-munity”, involves “receptiveness, initiative, awakening and desire to create something new through action” (Wojtyła, 1979, p. 273–308). Unity is visible in the fact that indi-viduals “can express themselves and somehow transcend themselves towards the world”
(Górniewicz, Rubacha, 1993, p. 26).
Self-creation takes place in the course of human life. At every stage of this life, it takes different form and is influenced by different factors. Adopting some course of life is important here, as it allows to treat individual holistically as a subject of develop-ment, and to see continuity in those changes (Przetacznik-Gierowska, Tyszkowa, 2014,
p. 212–221). In the context of grasping the meaning of one’s own life, it is necessary for the subject not only to realise the goal of self-creation but also to engage fully in the ef-forts to achieve it (Płużek, 2001, p. 33). This goal, or a set of interrelated goals resulting from the key values, is identified with self-creational projection of oneself (ideal “me”) confronted with the realised real “me”. For self-creation to happen accordingly, there has to be a strategy of implementing self-creational goals through certain decisions and actions (Cencini, Manenti, 2009, p. 125–130). What kind of existence would it be, should there be no important life goals and no desires for inner transformation to be fulfilled (Gadacz, 2002, p. 25)?
Autobiographical experience and vision of self plays an important role in this pro-cess. This vision is revealed in subjective efforts towards personal self-creation, where-as the first factor is exemplified by a “story” of personal life journey. Along with new experiences, this “story” is constantly updated, reconstructed and reinterpreted. The other factor refers to “designing” one’s own journey, or to something that is still a vi-sion of ideal thought constructs. “Designing” reveals intention behind the creation, in the future intentionally modelled by an individual. Thus, the cognitive layer that al-lows to understand the process of self-creation in the light of a “story”, is the metaphor of a “journey”, while in the light of “designing” this journey — it is the metaphor of a “wanderer”.
The “journey” metaphor suggests sequential nature, continuity and open character of different stages or periods in human life. It also assumes designing next stages, antici-pated by identified self-creational goals. At the same time, it does not define “place, time nor the end, or finishing line, assuming that every end has a chance to become a ‘new beginning’” (Tokarska, 2005, p. 126). The metaphor of a “wanderer” is understood as searching for values and openness to meanings originally associated with these values.
This metaphor also emphasises the process of making choices oriented towards those values which could bring meaning to subject’s life. More, it inspires creative design of the journey toward realisation of values the subject considers as crucial However, the
“wanderer” is aware of his own journey so far (autobiography). When thinking about his future, he cannot forget or neglect his past. Creating the narrative of his life (in the per-spective of future life choices that will define his future journey), he is aware that he still gets another chances to assign meaning to certain acts of life by understanding his own history. The “wanderer” gives meaning to what is, with consideration of who he wants to be and what his goals are.
Reflection upon self-creation as a lifelong process that is updated in the course of life, directs our attention towards qualitative research or biographical approaches, conducted as narratives. This allows to recognise and interpret meanings adopted by the subject as crucial to understand his own biography (Dubas, 2011, p. 197–213). Disturbances and turmoil of present reality, especially in the area of axiological foundations of human ex-istence, justify the necessity of conducting such research.