Honestly speaking, my first name doesn't mean much to me. I once watched a documentary that touched on whether or not first names can influence the outcome of peoples' lives, a part of which can be heard here: http://freakonomics.com/2013/04/08/how-much-does-your-name-matter-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/. For me, my parents chose a generic name to meet the one concern that if my name was too unusual I would stick out and not be viewed in a good light. The name 'Kyle' doesn't have any symbolic meaning... It's just normal. My last name, however, means more to me. My family and I always seem to get compliments on it; "LaCivita, what a beautiful name! Where does it originate?" The answer to that question always stirs up some emotion inside of me. It is an Italian name that I take pride in owning. I think back to my grandparents and great-grandparents that immigrated to the United States years ago with the same name, and I admire how far we've come as a family.
In my personal experience there has always been a distinction between the way you act around your peers and the way you act around adults. I do not mean to arouse a 'bad' connotation, but this distinction seems to stir up the idea of leading a 'double-life.' For example, when I was a child I would always go over my friends' houses to hang out. When I was greeted by their parents, I would be polite and courteous, holding back the crazy and spontaneous child that I was, as I was always taught to do. The second we would go downstairs to hang out outside of their parents' watch, my friends and I would fart and giggle and usually say whatever came to mind. This is natural, but there is only one problem: why can't we be ourselves around adults? Because of how we are taught to behave in certain situations, we hold back our feelings and emotions, which ultimately hinders our communication. If I felt comfortable saying whatever was on my mind to adults, I would have been more confident and I probably would have learned a lot more throughout my childhood. I wouldn't have refrained from asking questions in fear that they might be considered foolish or inappropriate. This could have lead to a better understanding of the world which would have given me more insight, and insight is something many children and teens seem to lack nowadays.
An interesting post by all means, it is of great intrigue that you seem to emphasize the pertinence of your last name to your own identity rather than your first name. upon the mention of leading a double life I couldn't help but to agree with such a situation since I too lead a similar life style or rather a similar manner of social interaction. One could also argue that it is possible to lead a life of three distinct personalities , one formal, another informal, and one unique to an individual that is based upon how the individual reflects upon previous actions or events or rather how as an individual, one is different from others. I agree with the statement that states unrestricted communication can only be achieved by a mutual understanding between two or more individuals that permits that sharing of emotion and uncensored thoughts, however when one looks at this from a individual or a group perspective ones views of unrestricted communication may change. One can state that unrestricted communication may allow individuals within a group understand each other in a better manner and thus benefiting the entire group as a whole due to the formation of stronger social bonds; however one can also state that such unrestricted communication can make ambiguous the boundaries of conventional respect and hierarchy within a group and thus promoting a sort of individualism that can be fatal to a group and thus causing its ultimate demise. In general your blog post portrayed an exemplary manner of reasoning and to some extent an immense amount of wisdom.
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