My Brother Emails Me a Question
My brother took a few moments out of his busy and lawyerly existence this morning to ask for my wise and mature older sisterly opinion on the following:
Does realizing that you are a shallow person in itself make you less shallow? Is self-awareness always a good unto itself, or is it only an instrumental good? Possibly even might knowledge of some lacking in character actually impute an even baser attitude towards life, if the self-awareness is unaccompanied by any attempt to remedy the problem?
My answers were: no, instrumental, and yes. Since I've spent the better part of my life, and certainly all of my twenties, honing my introspection skills, I feel pretty qualified to say this: it is quite possible to be both intensely self-aware and intensely selfish.
Consider this: The year I was 23 was an especially bad one for me. I was miserable in every aspect of my life and, throughout the year, clearly sunk into a depression that involved tantrum-like episodes. I was also miserable to be around.
Both in and out of the tantrums, I was completely cognizant of the fact that I had a problem. I knew that the circumstances of my life were bad and that I was behaving irrationally. I was self-aware. But that's where it stopped.
For much of that year, I used "being crazy" as a crutch. I explained away (and was excused from) terrible behavior because I "was crazy." And I believed it was OK to use my mood as an excuse because I was so self-aware. As long as I knew what was wrong with me and could apologize, everyone should accept the status quo.
Wrong. So wrong. In hindsight, of course. It's easy for me to see now (no longer "crazy") that I used my self-awareness to facilitate bad behavior. Miss Manners would have a field day. How could I possibly use my mood to justify behavior that made others' lives miserable? That's nothing but rude and self-involved.
I'm sure I've been better off in the long run because I was at least somewhat self-aware during that period. Once I grew up and decided to take responsibility for all that stuff I was aware of it was probably easier for me to start behaving properly than it would have been if I hadn't done all that soul-searching. But self-awareness alone? Without responsibility and positive action? Just makes things worse.
Does realizing that you are a shallow person in itself make you less shallow? Is self-awareness always a good unto itself, or is it only an instrumental good? Possibly even might knowledge of some lacking in character actually impute an even baser attitude towards life, if the self-awareness is unaccompanied by any attempt to remedy the problem?
My answers were: no, instrumental, and yes. Since I've spent the better part of my life, and certainly all of my twenties, honing my introspection skills, I feel pretty qualified to say this: it is quite possible to be both intensely self-aware and intensely selfish.
Consider this: The year I was 23 was an especially bad one for me. I was miserable in every aspect of my life and, throughout the year, clearly sunk into a depression that involved tantrum-like episodes. I was also miserable to be around.
Both in and out of the tantrums, I was completely cognizant of the fact that I had a problem. I knew that the circumstances of my life were bad and that I was behaving irrationally. I was self-aware. But that's where it stopped.
For much of that year, I used "being crazy" as a crutch. I explained away (and was excused from) terrible behavior because I "was crazy." And I believed it was OK to use my mood as an excuse because I was so self-aware. As long as I knew what was wrong with me and could apologize, everyone should accept the status quo.
Wrong. So wrong. In hindsight, of course. It's easy for me to see now (no longer "crazy") that I used my self-awareness to facilitate bad behavior. Miss Manners would have a field day. How could I possibly use my mood to justify behavior that made others' lives miserable? That's nothing but rude and self-involved.
I'm sure I've been better off in the long run because I was at least somewhat self-aware during that period. Once I grew up and decided to take responsibility for all that stuff I was aware of it was probably easier for me to start behaving properly than it would have been if I hadn't done all that soul-searching. But self-awareness alone? Without responsibility and positive action? Just makes things worse.
posted by Kit Pollard at
3:21 PM
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