A few months back, David Brooks, a columnist with the New York Times, who I disagree with more than agree, asked the question How do you succeed in being introspective without being self-absorbed? He concludes: “The self is something that can be seen more accurately from a distance than from close up. The more you can yank yourself away from your own intimacy with yourself, the more reliable your self-awareness is likely to be.”
As someone who has had to periodically defend the fact that I engage in the (perceived) navel-gazing that is the personal blog, I do believe there is something to be said for this methodology: “We are better self-perceivers if we can create distance and see the general contours of our emergent system selves — rather than trying to unpack constituent parts.”
He suggests three ways of doing this.
“First, you can distance yourself by time.” Somewhere in my life, I have learned to do this. My first instinct in a situation is not always the best. Facebook debates are not only non-productive, generally speaking, they make me uneasy. So when I write something two or three days, or weeks, or months after an event, its lack of immediacy is actually valuable to me. It is less fraught with emotion.
“Second, we can achieve distance from self through language.” Sometimes, I am watching my own movie, and it’s not me commenting, but some iteration of me. This may not make sense to you, and I wish I could explain it better. But I have hit on a self-duality that’s useful.
“Finally, there is narrative… We should see ourselves as literary critics, putting each incident in the perspective of a longer life story.” Isn’t almost everything we experience in a broader context?
So, unintentionally, I’m taking life lessons from David Brooks. I can deal with that.
This may well be why I tend to warehouse posts: it gives me a chance to reread and rework if necessary before hitting the Publish button. (Too many things I’ve written reek of injudiciousness for the sake of spontaneity.)
Spontaneity is highly overrated.
Spontaneity can sometimes be a Pandora’s Box! I don’t really equate Introspective with Narcissism. I believe someone can be introspective about life, but not lose perspective about the world around them. Narcissists are very myopic in their focus and tend to not care about how what they want affects others. That’s just been my experience with that type of personality.
(I consider David Brooks an idiot.) I am a complete introvert, a statement which often surprises people who are acquainted with me. I often wish I didn’t have to deal with people at all. But I discovered a while back that I have to connect with people, it’a a biological imperative. But one of my strategies to avoid turning into a nut who babbles about conspiring space aliens, well, I write my blog. I’ve found writing a better way to communicate with the world than talking, which is fraught with misunderstandings.