To Thine Own Self Be True?

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

So says Polonius to his son in Act I of Hamlet.  Nutsy quoted it recently in her blog, Miss Gracie, and it got me thinking (hat tip or something to Easy here too).

"Be true to myself" - which self? The self-ish, self-indulgent self who just wants an excuse to do things its own way? The idealistic, possibly even priggish, self who wants to help make the world a better place, whatever the cost?

Down the sidebar of this blog, under 'About Me', I call myself a "child of God: created in His image, fallen, redeemed, struggling, looking forward to renewal" - lots of selfs, not all of which I can be true to at the same time. For me, the self I really want to be true to is the one I believe I was made to be. Not the messed-up, twisted, distorted image that I have become, but the restored, renewed self that I originally should have been and, God-willing, one day will be. The sidebar continues, "weary of empty religion," surely any religion is empty which doesn't encourage and support us in being true to the best we can be, rather than just what we are now; the people we were made to be, not just souls overly shaped by the world in which we live.

A few months before he died, Johnny Cash recorded a cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt:-

I find it painful watching; Cash seems to have been a man who really epitomised truth, in all its painful honesty. YouTube also has a part of documentary featuring the Hurt video and interviews with friends and family. This is excellent, I think, but do watch the straight Cash video above first:-