culture hunt

" our memories reach back no further than yesterday; we are, as it were, strangers to ourselves.... that is but a natural consequence to a culture that consists entirely of imports and imitation... we absorb all our ideas ready-made, and therefore the indelible trace left in the mind by a progressive movement of ideas, which gives strength, does not shape our intellect... we are like children who have not been taught to think for themselves: when they become adults, they have nothing of their own --- all their knowledge is on the surface of their being, their soul is not within them " ---pyotr chaadaev --- this is taken from the foreword by randolf s. david in the book kapwa-the self in the other by katrin m. de guia i have yet to read it fully... and in reading it, i hope to find an answer to this cultural hunt of mine...