It is a paradox that we firmly believe we have the choice to define ourselves and then steadfastly refuse to reconsider or allow that choice to shift or change over time. Great essay. I will need to put Montaigne on my must read list. Unless I change my mind later of course.
The part that feels especially important here is how psychological language can have two lives.
At first, it can be liberating. It gives a name to a pattern that used to feel like moral failure: “I’m not simply broken or bad; something in me learned to survive this way.”
But later, the same language can become protective in a different sense. It stops being a doorway into change and becomes a shelter from it.
Not “this is a pattern I am noticing.” But “this is who I am.”
maybe the deeper danger is not knowing yourself too well, but mistaking description for discernment. Self-knowledge should make the self more available to transformation, not more obedient to its own biography.
I absolutely love how you've worded this and couldn't agree more.
As a training therapist it is frequently the case that course mates and clients utilise descriptions of themselves in their most stagnant definition. It's frustrating when these "I am" statements can, like you say, hold initial use in affirming something within the individual.
I would love to see more pieces engaging with a transformative 'moving target' approach to self awareness.
Therapeutic language does not make one self aware if it remains largely the same throughout our mature lives. We aren't meant to understand and analyse everything single thing as it happens.
These things take time, resources, mistakes and a little recklessness as we fumble our way through changes hoping that good intent can carry us through what we do not know.
We are constantly changing! And I find comfort in that fact, even if it brings with it an awful lot of temporary discomfort.
Yess, and maybe the clinical test is if it increases freedom of response, not only if is accurate.
A formulation can be true and still become constricting if it turns into a prediction the person keeps obeying, so good self-awareness should expand the repertoire: more ways to feel, choose, repair, risk, relate.
If naming the pattern only makes the pattern feel more inevitable, it has stopped being insight and become identity.
Thanks for teaching me a little about Montaigne, and about self-knowledge. The subject of the self is a morass. Everyone from the poststructuralists to the Buddhists will tell you that the self is a fiction, and then we have Socrates enjoining us to know ourselves. Science gives us neuroplasticity, the capacity of our brains to adaptively re-wire themselves. I have encountered certain (undesirable) aspects of myself that have not yielded at all to change through therapy, so I am inclined to think there is a thing there that we can indeed get to know, but who knows? In any case, your point that a story is just a story, not a self-definition, is well-taken.
I really like the last paragraph, the part about becoming too obedient to your past. By trapping yourself to a certain label, you’ll experience negative emotions whenever you’re not acting like the label you’ve assigned yourself. Instead of praising yourself for changing, you’ll be telling yourself “no, that’s not how I usually am”. Progress becomes a nuisance
Being alive is a cumulative, compounding process. I, personally, have never seen myself as the same person I was yesterday, but I suppose that's just me over-analysing my own personality.
This, too, might be a "phase". I've been wondering why I recoil a bit when I hear cause-effect statements like these, especially anchored in the present. I don't think that either the effect or the cause are immovable (or, by extension, that there's some end to "processing", in therapy-speak). Currently suspecting that perfect tenses would indicate some degree of willingness to part with the idea that they may be, and sort of thinking about "I've been..." as a shorthand for "ongoing self-actualization".
More apt: “The Problem with Concluding Who You Are”. The gerund (an "-ing" word acting as a noun), takes a live, ongoing action and freezes it: “nounifying" a verb (process).
Just had an eye-gasm reading this. Self-awareness is certainly better than no awareness, but if you obsessively crave coherence, it might be achieved under the guise of denial. Self awareness isn't an autopsy to our past behaviors, rather a tool for our futures. There's a thick line between growth and an unhealthy desire for a neat narrative. We're way too complex internally & on top of that we're not static. Such a thought-provoking discussion.
Lovely. Come ye as little children… and we must empty the cup every morning to open the mystery of miracles, while holding the container of self-awareness. To know is both to know and to limit the beautiful mystery of the moment for sure. Personhood and ego can certainly inhibit growth.
It is a paradox that we firmly believe we have the choice to define ourselves and then steadfastly refuse to reconsider or allow that choice to shift or change over time. Great essay. I will need to put Montaigne on my must read list. Unless I change my mind later of course.
The part that feels especially important here is how psychological language can have two lives.
At first, it can be liberating. It gives a name to a pattern that used to feel like moral failure: “I’m not simply broken or bad; something in me learned to survive this way.”
But later, the same language can become protective in a different sense. It stops being a doorway into change and becomes a shelter from it.
Not “this is a pattern I am noticing.” But “this is who I am.”
maybe the deeper danger is not knowing yourself too well, but mistaking description for discernment. Self-knowledge should make the self more available to transformation, not more obedient to its own biography.
I absolutely love how you've worded this and couldn't agree more.
As a training therapist it is frequently the case that course mates and clients utilise descriptions of themselves in their most stagnant definition. It's frustrating when these "I am" statements can, like you say, hold initial use in affirming something within the individual.
I would love to see more pieces engaging with a transformative 'moving target' approach to self awareness.
Therapeutic language does not make one self aware if it remains largely the same throughout our mature lives. We aren't meant to understand and analyse everything single thing as it happens.
These things take time, resources, mistakes and a little recklessness as we fumble our way through changes hoping that good intent can carry us through what we do not know.
We are constantly changing! And I find comfort in that fact, even if it brings with it an awful lot of temporary discomfort.
Yess, and maybe the clinical test is if it increases freedom of response, not only if is accurate.
A formulation can be true and still become constricting if it turns into a prediction the person keeps obeying, so good self-awareness should expand the repertoire: more ways to feel, choose, repair, risk, relate.
If naming the pattern only makes the pattern feel more inevitable, it has stopped being insight and become identity.
Thanks for teaching me a little about Montaigne, and about self-knowledge. The subject of the self is a morass. Everyone from the poststructuralists to the Buddhists will tell you that the self is a fiction, and then we have Socrates enjoining us to know ourselves. Science gives us neuroplasticity, the capacity of our brains to adaptively re-wire themselves. I have encountered certain (undesirable) aspects of myself that have not yielded at all to change through therapy, so I am inclined to think there is a thing there that we can indeed get to know, but who knows? In any case, your point that a story is just a story, not a self-definition, is well-taken.
Great mini article, and love the artwork! It’s always great to see something not generated on this site.
I really like the last paragraph, the part about becoming too obedient to your past. By trapping yourself to a certain label, you’ll experience negative emotions whenever you’re not acting like the label you’ve assigned yourself. Instead of praising yourself for changing, you’ll be telling yourself “no, that’s not how I usually am”. Progress becomes a nuisance
Being alive is a cumulative, compounding process. I, personally, have never seen myself as the same person I was yesterday, but I suppose that's just me over-analysing my own personality.
You cannot step in the same river twice
This, too, might be a "phase". I've been wondering why I recoil a bit when I hear cause-effect statements like these, especially anchored in the present. I don't think that either the effect or the cause are immovable (or, by extension, that there's some end to "processing", in therapy-speak). Currently suspecting that perfect tenses would indicate some degree of willingness to part with the idea that they may be, and sort of thinking about "I've been..." as a shorthand for "ongoing self-actualization".
More apt: “The Problem with Concluding Who You Are”. The gerund (an "-ing" word acting as a noun), takes a live, ongoing action and freezes it: “nounifying" a verb (process).
Just had an eye-gasm reading this. Self-awareness is certainly better than no awareness, but if you obsessively crave coherence, it might be achieved under the guise of denial. Self awareness isn't an autopsy to our past behaviors, rather a tool for our futures. There's a thick line between growth and an unhealthy desire for a neat narrative. We're way too complex internally & on top of that we're not static. Such a thought-provoking discussion.
Lovely. Come ye as little children… and we must empty the cup every morning to open the mystery of miracles, while holding the container of self-awareness. To know is both to know and to limit the beautiful mystery of the moment for sure. Personhood and ego can certainly inhibit growth.
Identity is dead, you are alive
You never know yourself enough.. look in the universe within
Whitman said it well-
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
https://poets.org/poem/song-myself-51
Even though we think we know ourselves
too well, we can still surprise ourself with unknown new traits that rise through certain triggers 🫣😀
Omg can anyone just volunteer to make art for your essays? I’d love to contribute too! Where does that happen?
Send me a message!