Lack of self-awareness leads to transparency

Bruce Lee (via Brainpickings) asserts:

We can see through others only when we see through ourselves.

Lack of self-awareness renders us transparent; a soul that knows itself is opaque.

I find this to be true. I think it's particularly well illustrated by one narrow facet of life. If you look at an infant, it is almost not self-aware at all. It lives every thought, every feeling, every bowel movement as if it is not being observed, either not even by its own self. Eventually it becomes a child, but there is still a lack of self-awareness, things that are not even on its radar. The child picks his nose, it throws tantrums, it does all manner of things that are considered ridiculous or at least transparent by its observers. It is not aware that it is being judged for these acts. It does not see any ridiculousness in its actions.

You see this in adults all of the time too (every adult, every person, including me). Maybe it's the couple that doesn't seem to understand that the way they fight in public shows that one or both have a rigid interpretation of gender roles. Maybe it's someone's championship of Donald Trump as someone who "tells things like they really are" at an office holiday party that suggests that their vision of the world is one of relative intolerance. Maybe it's the over defensiveness someone gets over a particular issue that suggests that this is a sore spot. 

But I really wonder, if Bruce Lee is correct, is it just that people like that seem transparent to others because they're not as adept at hiding those particular traits (or don't realize that they probably should be hiding those particular traits)? Is it just about the breach of social norms that make these people seem transparent to me and others? If so, that makes Bruce Lee seem less wise. 

But I think it is more than that, there's more to it than just noticing the violation of social norms. Because today I saw a young teenage girl in Christmas performance spring up to the stage and back down with the same sort of exaggerated springing body movements of a very excited three year old. It was definitely a violation of social norms. I thought that most people in the audience would identify that sort of behavior as immature. But it also had such a purity, such a lack of affectation to it -- as if she was self-aware, just not social norm aware, and just being true to herself and whatever it is that she wanted to do in that moment with regard for keeping up appearances. And she didn't seem transparent to me. She still seemed opaque. So it seems like it's not just about knowing what masks to wear to hide our true selves? But also, how is it that sociopaths are so good at reading people? Is it that they are more self-aware than most? Or perhaps more self-aware of the role of cultural expectations in which they live?

Another thought from Bruce Lee describing a problem that a lot of people experience, and for sure I see it in personality disorders that have a tendency to create a false self and have weak self-awareness (e.g. narcissism):

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are… Yet it is remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied and crave most for a new identity have the least self-awareness. They have turned away from an unwanted self and hence never had a good look at it. The result is that those most dissatisfied can neither dissimulate nor attain a real change of heart. They are transparent, and their unwanted qualities persist through all attempts at self-dramatization and self-transformation.

And a parting thought that seems to reference the external control fallacy that got referenced in this post on cognitive distortion:

There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts that are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at the alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience; they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power — God, history, fate, nation, or humanity.

Myers-Briggs and the Forer Effect

A reader sent this video about how Myers-Briggs is not at all well accepted in the psychology world but is highly popular outside and why:



But to say that the types are "totally meaningless" seems an exaggeration. If (1) about half of the people who take the test multiple times get different types and (2) it fails to predict success in various jobs and (3) it's really only so popular because it gives positive results (you're courageous, you're sensitive, e.g.) and it simplifies our world and satisfies our brain's desire to find patterns and categorize, that in my mind doesn't equate to meaningless. But is it more popular nowadays to say something outrageous and absolute, or has that always been in?

The interesting thing to me is that there isn't more gaming of the Myers-Briggs if it is so popular, if it is supposedly so popular with employers and so meaningless.

Also, my brother (who has apparently been living under a rock for a decade or more) had just discovered the test recently and was making everyone in my family take it, but only after I had predicted everyone's types with uncanny success. Could it be that what the Myers-Briggs is testing accurately is less someone's personality and more their deepest desires and insecurities? It doesn't seem obviously that way if you just look at the questions, but the whole administration of it seems to invite it -- people answering questions about what they think and want? Could it be that the Myers-Briggs is getting at underlying beliefs and desires in a sideways way the same way that a Freudian slip or dream analysis might reveal unconscious motivations and belief systems? For some reason I kind of feel well, because the same part of my brain that I use to guess people's type is the same one that I use to read people (i.e. observe desires, longings, and areas of potential vulnerability in another).

I know I've said a lot of douche-y, particularly megalomanical and uneducated things in this post, and this is the last one I promise, but how is it that people don't know what their type is before they take the test? Do they not have any level of self-awareness that they need to be told these things about themselves?

Reading people (part 2)

This was an interesting old comment from an old post:

I love Jung's concept of the "Shadow". It is the part of our identity we split off from our own consciousness because it is too threatening to the persona we access (constructed to a greater or lesser degree based on our need to calculate vs be sincere) .To have our shadows exposed feels like an annihilation of self- and the sociopath knows this. You are correct- a few select individuals who are not sociopaths seem to have an eerie knowledge of how to "map" the Shadow sides of new acquaintances. However they rarely employ this talent for nefarious purposes. But it is a formidable skill set to have- and anyone who has had their own Shadow exposed (or have been threatened by exposure) tend to have a reflexive defensive reaction to people who have developed this gift- sociopathic or otherwise. 

The best "tell" I know for whether someone with this gift is sociopathic or simply insightful is their use of flattery whenever you look at them funny for saying something that to outsiders might seem innocuous, but has pierced you to the core. The sociopath has made a note of your reaction and tries to switch the subject by propping up your wounded ego. The insightful person is more likely to stay present with you and not immediately pretend they did not see what you both know that they saw. They aren't necessarily interested in learning more- they happen to just reflect back to you what they have seen.

In contrast- the sociopath becomes obsessed with knowing every last detail about you as a way of learning the "Shadow" part of you that you hide even from yourself. They want to know what buttons to push should they ever have the need to ruin you, and also for the purposes of inducing your confusion and anxieties when you deviate from their plan to make you one of their sycophants. 

The gift of having your life turned upside down by a sociopath is in having your "Shadow" self exposed. When this happens, your comfortable illusions about your identity are shattered. This experience will either destroy you or strengthen you, depending upon your own resistance to the lessons you chose or refuse in the aftermath of this traumatic experience. 

Book appendix (part 3)

From an interview with a friend:


I like talking to you because you are like a stockpile of knowledge with the capability to process important components of that knowledge and to assimilate them into an intelligent decision—the best decision.  Whereas I feel like I might fall on to decision that is fourth best, even though I have been exposed to the same data.  But I have forgotten that information in the meantime, and am unable to pull it forward when the time to make the decision arises.  And you even take into account my personal preferences.  I don’t know how, I guess because you know me now.  But something I find very humorous is that when I start explaining emotionally frustrating things to you, maybe about my marriage, and you’ll say “That’s because he __________” and I am always wondering why you have so much insight into my emotional life.  Insight that I didn’t have—like I am still hashing through the ideas emotionally and haven’t been able to reach any conclusion, but you have been able to reach a conclusion by just listening to me for a minute.  Sometimes I discount your conclusions, I will be honest.  At those times I generally conclude that you didn’t input the right information.  Other times I will be surprised at how spot on you are.  It seems like you know my husband better than I know him. I’m always surprised with your assessments of people, because you can kind of sum them up, taking this vast amount of data—a person—and you break it down into the important bits for that output.  You tell me, “well of course that is what happened because of these few things.”  

Also, you’re blatantly honest.  At first I was scared and there were moments in this house in which I was afraid that you would provoke fights in social situations. Then I started finding the humor in it.  Now sometimes I will use it to find out things I really want to know by just asking you, although I can still get angry at some of the things you say.  Overall, though, it is refreshing, and I have a much harder time getting offended at anything you say than I used to.  Even now telling you these things, it’s odd because I think now you will understand me so much better and when I come to you with another emotional problem you will say, “Oh, it’s because of this,” or “something something something” and I will feel ok.  

When I come to you with an emotional problem though, I don’t feel like you give empathy or emotional support.  Sometimes you will say, “that’s just because your husband's a retard, sorry.”  So maybe that is empathy.  Maybe it is refreshing to hear that it comes down to something that isn’t emotional—that my problems aren’t fundamentally an emotional issue, but something separate that can be intellectualized.  It takes out the sting in the hurt.  

I remember one time you were talking to me in the car and you said something like, “I don’t think I want to marry a guy who is as intelligent as me.”  And I asked you, “someone more like me.”  You said “no, not really.”  And I thought, oh ok, smarter than me then.  

I think you’re a better computer than I am.  If you had learned all of the stuff that I learned in college, I think you could do so much better with it than I can.  But that’s alright, I supposed I have other skills.  You’re like a data processor, but better because you can also process emotional inputs.  You can’t ask Google why my husband did something.  It’s like the best thing—kind of like a fun toy.

Eyes wide open

I spent years studying music. After a while my ears got very sensitive to even small differences in pitch. On the good side, I am a better musician because of it. I am more appreciative of people who play or sing truly well. But I am also very acutely aware of poor playing and singing. I hear bad singing on television and cringe. I go to church and hear bad music and lean forward with my head in my hands so no one will see my discomfort. I don't necessarily want to hear these things. Sometimes I wish I didn't hear them, especially when I don't have anything invested in the activity or can't change what's going on. In those instances, the knowledge is just wasted on me.

Sometimes hearing things no one else does even makes me a target of other people's distrust. One time I was involved in a performance using primitive instruments, each with a particular "pitch". The instruments were played as a group to form "melodies". Before the performance, the instruments must have gotten mixed up because when we started playing, parts of the melody were inverted. It nearly drove me crazy and as we walked off stage I immediately remarked to my colleagues on the issue. No one had noticed. They looked at my like I was loony. No one heard it. No one believed me. I don't know why, because they thought they heard something else? My word against what they thought they heard and they trusted their own senses more. A few days later we listened to the recording together. Everyone was watching me as someone pressed "play" -- either I was wrong or they were wrong and pretty soon we would know for certain. I was vindicated, but I wasn't happy about it. Not really. The didn't apologize. They looked at me like I was a witch.

It makes me trust people less too. Once I lost a competition to someone whom I thought was clearly playing out of tune. Because I believed that surely everyone else could hear how badly the intonation was, I thought there must be some other explanation for why his performance beat mine, something nefarious at work. I saw a conspiracy and cover up where there was none. It would be one thing if I could just convince myself that I  have idiosyncratic preferences that aren't shared by many people -- which is better, beer or wine? There's no certain answer in matters of opinion. But matters of pitch are objective. Either you are playing or singing the pitches that are being requested of you or you are not. A tuning machine would be able to make these fine distinctions and so can I, for all the good it does me.

As a child I saw and understood a lot of things that I know I was not supposed to. Even now I see things that I don't necessarily want to see. I see people's fear and their betrayal, how weak and unreliable their love is, how soft their convictions are. And especially when I was growing up I thought that a lot of the world must be corrupt. Because why didn't other people see these things and act accordingly? It seemed like a cover up. And when I mentioned it to people they didn't believe me. They thought that I was making things up, and in blatant bizarre ways. I learned to stop pointing these things out, but I did feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland.

By the way, does any one else hear the wrong notes in penultimate and ante-penultimate timpani pitches in the theme song for Fringe?