💾 Archived View for midnight.pub › posts › 760 captured on 2022-06-11 at 21:48:18. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Posting for the sake of posting :(
Spent the day and last weeks and really, the last few years in excruciating introspection. I went so far this week as to read hundreds of pages of psychiatric literature just to see if I could relate and finally capture myself. This made things worse because now I can't evaluate myself without being biased anymore. I can't say if I'm honest or not, if I'm detached or not (I'm not, but I wish I was), or if my self is split or not.
I am obsessed with representing myself honestly to myself and others, but I don't like what I have to disclose. It's either nothing or something very unspecial or boring. To say that I am nothing is far more intriguing than to say that I am something, but I can't tell if it is true. Even to say that I can't tell seems like a lie to make myself think I have some enigmatic substance-- even though I don't!
And this enigmatic substance would be a relief, but it would also prevent me from being nothing. But I suspect this is how it will have to be, because if I do have something interesting that I am not aware of, to discover it would be to make it collapse and phase away. I would get bored of it. I would rather have no self than a self-made and dishonest one.
Even the way I think of a “self” is dishonest. I understand what it is but tell myself I don’t so I can procrastinate the inevitable doom of realizing I have a solid and single self which is simply quite dull.
I said I was posting for the sake of posting and it's true. I also suspect I am trying to break this loop of compulsive self-examination. Actually, my real reason is (I can’t write it because it’ll show how narcissistic and self-absorbed I am, but I’m sure you can guess!)….
Okay. I think I get it. I'll leave.
I've been there before. I too have looked for labels to better understand myself. But labels can be limiting. You are far more than the sum of any labels that you might devise.
It would also seem that 1) the desire to find one's true self and 2) the pressure to be interesting or special might be at odds with each other.
What if your true self isn't that interesting to you or others? Do you change yourself or do you accept and love the person you were created to be?
I've realized too that introspection must also be balanced with extraspection (looking beyond one's self).
I'll leave you with this quote from Confucius:
"I have been the whole day without eating,
and the whole night without sleeping;
occupied with thinking.
It was of no use.
The better plan is to learn."