I’ve been watching myself for a while now. I’ve not been really good at it, and my desire to move up to observing seems a laugh now, but it’s a work in progress. A recent experience gave me quite a lot of perspective on this. My words, humour and actions, as perceived by others, were far away from my intent. Words and humour. Somewhere in my passage through life, I picked up this armour, a defense mechanism so that I wouldn’t have to become invisible. In fact, the experience gave me a sense of deja vu, and made me think of self perception.
I recently read a fantastic post on Ribbonfarm titled ‘Ritual & the consciousness‘ that, among other things, explores the self and the ‘watcher at the gates of the mind’. Not quite along the lines in the post, but I think I have two watchers – one that represents others’ perception of me and another that represents self perception. The universe in a larger context might be indifferent, but in many environments, I realise, it is dangerous to ignore the first. I also realise that the second is, though difficult, where I can make a serious attempt to shake free.
The self might after all be an illusion, but “You first need to have an ego in order to be aware that it doesn’t exist.” (via this wonderful Brain Pickings post) I think that not only have I been made painfully aware of my ego, but I now take every opportunity to acknowledge it. The next step is to let go of my armour, maybe I picked it up to protect my ego, my perception of self.
P.S. Watch Jim Carrey in a different avataar, giving superb life lessons
The clarity with which you write these things is awesome! 🙂
Is every one as self-aware as this? Me thinks most people only have one universal sense of self that’s acknowledged by themselves and others.
Thanks! 🙂
I’d tend to agree, and maybe there’s a reason. It makes things relatively simple?
Simpler and easier to live in that state of not-knowing? I envy that!
Ditto! Sigh