Self | ||
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What is 'self'?
Self is our persona.
Our image, avatar, construct, identity, representative...
An idea of who we are or would like to see ourselves. It is like our
public profile.
You
Our persona is constructed from our experiences.
It is made from our education, upbringing, society, reading, watching, eating,
smelling, tasting, touching, feeling, opinions, bias,
impressions, notions, ideas, insights...
Essentially it is the product of memory mixed with
wishful thinking.
Management
Self-discipline, self-consciousness,
self-awareness, self-control, self-reliance,
self-help, self-respect, self-knowledge, self-defence, self-restraint
(and so forth) are all concerned with managing your avatar/persona.
Self-consciousness is your Public Relations
Consultant.
A dog or a child
Managing the self is akin to controlling an
unruly child. We see the 'self' as being apart from who we really
are... and are occasionally embarrassed by
the behaviour of our 'self'.
The self is the cause of self-gratification, self-promotion and
attention-seeking behaviour.
Validation
Promoting your own significance is a sign of insecurity.
Rather than feel contained, complete, integrated,
the 'self' feels untethered and unappreciated.
It seeks recognition and validation.
The ego wants to be acknowledged, flattered and held in high esteem.
All of this must take place at somebody else's expense...
Lack of humour
The more seriously an individual values their
self-image, the less genuine humour they possess.
So much effort is invested in shoring-up their public image that somewhere along
the way they forgot to laugh.
Lacking humility, sincerity and candour, the insecure
egotist brags and boasts as a lifestyle habit.
Soulless
Bored, listless people constantly crave new ways to
feed their self.
Theirs is a life of novelty, ephemeral interests, petty,
shallow pursuits, holidays, shopping,
chatter and entertainment.
No depth.
Everything is geared towards short-term
gratification.
Interaction
When we interact with other people, we want them to see us in a
favourable way.
Our aim is to shape their impression of us in alignment with how we
choose to see ourselves.
This is public relations.
You often say, "I would give,
but only to the deserving."
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride,
that you should see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
(Kahlil Gibran)
Other people
We see other people relative to:
Our own personality construct/self-image
How their behaviour fits into our model of how things should be/operate
This of course is not
seeing what is actually there.
It is filtering everything
through ourselves.
Self-support mechanism
Vanity, pride, conceit, egotism, defensiveness, arrogance,
competition...
Competing
At the heart of competition is the notion that one person is better than somebody else.
This has led to the creation of a callous society.
There is no harmony to be found in
competition.
Comparison
Competition requires there to be
comparison.
Freedom and happiness cannot exist when you are anxious about what somebody
else is thinking or doing.
Comparison necessitates balancing your idea of self against your idea of
someone else's self. Beating the other person confirms our sense of self; it
validates
our own feeling of personal significance.
Fear
Self-image can serve as an elaborate disguise designed to hide inner fears
and uncertainties.
Final product
Some people regard their idea of themselves as being the 'final product'
- the finished version - in no need of
revision or improvement.
This attitude is a fast-track to mental
deterioration.
Have you noticed, in newspapers
and magazines, the amount of space given to politics, to the sayings of
politicians and their activities? Of course, other news is given, but
political news predominates; the economic and political life has become
all-important. It is so much easier to throw oneself into social and
political activity than to understand life as a whole; to be associated with
any organized thought, with political or religious activity, offers a
respectable escape from the pettiness and drudgery of everyday life.
With a
small heart you can talk of big things and of the popular leaders; you can
hide your shallowness with the easy phrases of world affairs; your restless
mind can happily and with popular encouragement settle down to propagate the
ideology of a new or of an old religion.
(Krishnamurti)
Page created
21 February 1995
Last updated
04 May 2023