Know thyself

Know Thyself is a phrase as old as a labour is long.  Although it is sometimes attributed to Socrates, it was originally sourced on a column or pillar at Delphi. It is the epitome of oracle. This phrase introduced itself in my research for A New Day and here it is again, reappearing in the early transcripts of The Invisible Woman. The shudder I feel is real, this is not a comfortable theme for me.

Know thyself. One would think at 56 years old, I would ‘know thyself.’ Sometimes I think I do and then, nope, some event or incident triggers the realisation that I know nothing. This was uncomfortably apparent during my journey with the Dancing Spirits through the south of France. There is something about group dynamics that has me relinquishing my power and sense of self in a swirl of energies, agendas and expectations. I lose myself in this crucible and become vulnerable to my own doubts of worthiness.  I am not satisfied with small chatter or mindless banter and I can’t be bothered to make the small talk in group situations when it seems to be called for. Perhaps I am not curious enough to care? I think there is a lot to be said for silence.

Know thyself. Perhaps I need to tease out its substance, examine it closely as one would a fragmentation of reality and identity. I hold the mirror steady to gaze into my reflection, only to suffer the consequence of mood and self-esteem. My gentleness seems to be taking a coffee break. The word reflection conjures up an image of Narcissist lying on the grass lost in the image of his beauty reflected in the water. Inward gazing brought about his demise. I must tread carefully. I avert my eyes and shield myself by concurring that looking outward might provide a softer approach toward understanding. But I have already faltered. I purposely select the word understanding, for it seems an oxymoron to look outward for insight.

So I direct the bright light of illumination away from an inward focus on possible base attributes or evils, and consider the less formidable way to know thyself through reflection from others. To see myself through the eyes of others. But is how I am seen equal to how/who I am? How I am witnessed in the daily life of humanity balancing and weighing my worth and contribution? This can potentially say so much. But does it tell me about me, or them? Does judgement project?

I know one young woman who sees me as problematic, difficult, perhaps too intense. I know this because I overheard her complain to her friend: “see what I have to put up with?” Face to face she is deceptively bright and cheery. But anything reflected from her eyes is clouded in mine by doubt, mistrust and the thought that her truthfulness spins within its own orb of narcissism.

But the words linger. Everything I hear about people who are not liked refers to them being “difficult,” “hard work,” “too intense”. Is this me? Am I that person?

I detect a soft edge of condescending derision that has surreptitiously slipped onto the page. I see it shimmer within these lines, cloaking its dark intent as if it were an innocent comment. I am not fooled. I am aware that it could persevere as a through-line wavering between passive aggression and forthright confrontation. It is a familiar game played many times. Too many. The sigh I exhale is burdened with archetypal essence of victim, weighted down with irritation and tedium. I think I would rather be doing some other research than poke about the dimly lit caverns of self-awareness or self-knowledge. Dig too deeply and you never know what you might find. But I do not detour. This phrase has resurfaced in my writing and I believe I need to address it in some capacity. I have noticed though, that “people who are not liked” has slipped into the conversation? Is being liked a criterion for knowing thyself? Am I confusing the two? Ouch.

A work colleague judged me as insecure. Her analysis concluded by what she saw as my apparent need for perfection and control. A palm reader said I was “too loyal.” Too loyal to my job, my husband, my children. Unfortunately, just not loyal to myself.

In my darkest moments I see myself as pathetic, worthless, and I readily agree with those who do not sit with me, play with me, laugh with me – get away as far as possible. The bottom of the barrel is not a good place to hang around and a line from one of Pink’s songs keeps me company: 

“don’t want to be my friend no more, I want to be somebody else.”

What do I know about myself that will balance or counteract this shower of unsolicited negativity? For I don’t see myself as ‘difficult’, or ‘hard work’, and I don’t quite understand what ‘too intense’ means. I think it is arbitrary what constitutes intensity, and by implication what is considered too much or too little.

There are people who love me (again that ‘liked’ criterion) so there are some qualities that shine forth and promote a me that is favorable.  I know I can be clever and funny and smart. I know I am creative, that I think beyond the cliched square. I am also intuitive, knowing things that have not been said, seeing things that are vulnerable or secret in others. I know I speak this too directly, too bluntly. My sensitivity often lacks grace.

I have a quest for truth that doesn’t bother with niceties; with others, with myself. It leaves its residue imprinted in my work, in my writings, in my daily interactions and in my thoughts.  Standing alone under the glare of self-interrogation, I have been flayed naked by my own condemnation and brutal honesty.  My grief ripples like a field of wild flowers scattering remnant petals of regret and accusation. Even if I didn’t say it I thought it. In fiction the heroine is usually celebrated for her traits of truthfulness and her direct, fearless approach to speaking her mind. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to translate to my reality.

With unbecoming self-righteousness, I seek out my impulse for generosity, my inclination for kindness and consideration for others. My virtues seem to have fled. In my search, I discover within the tight corners of my soul, asylum has been offered to the depravities of my ego; rationale and justifications ready to perfume the stench of my greed, judgement and vanity.

An aspect of knowing thyself is my feeling of being different from other people: I don’t quite fit in. I don’t seem to think or behave as expected. This is not acclaim awarded as uniqueness. The problem is I am never sure what is expected. I have laughed too hard at jokes I never understood. I have walked away when I should have stayed and stayed when that proverbial mile had beckoned. I have a frequent inner dialogue that starts with ‘what have I done/said this time?’ and always ends in tears.

I do try though. Growing up with ‘the nice girl syndrome’, I tried to be that normal girl I never believed I was. Unfortunately, I attached my sense of worth to the outcome of my attempts and every failure wounded. Exclusion is now my nemesis. It triggers child borne fears of monstrous proportion. Bang, Bang, my baby shot me down.  It smacks hard leaving bruises that linger under the skin, unseen but sensitive to the touch. It is accompanied by dark glances of politeness masquerading as feigned interest. I don’t think it comes as any surprise that I am more than happy to be by myself. I like this as choice, not rejection. 

But I believe I am lucky in life. I am blessed. I love deeply. Family and friends nourish me. I have scaled my mountain and I can usually get a car-park when I put my mind to it.

I have characteristics that seem to have collective agreement: strong, brave, courageous. My horoscope calls me inspiring, honest, passionate, steadfast. My husband calls me compassionate.

But I can also be direct, thoughtless, opinionated, loud, brash and insensitive. My mother has called me bossy (mind you I was about 7 years old) and I have been accused of being stern. But I am also kind and sensitive and will stricken and cry easily over suffering and pain.

Know thyself? These descriptions, judgements, perspectives combine to colour and texture this thing called me. But it doesn’t seem to get to the real core of who I am. Not in a satisfactory way that offers awareness for me to stand tall in my power and beat strong in my heart. My confidence is precarious, shifting indiscriminately within a framework of a sum total of many things that are ultimately spat out as a thinking, eating, sleeping, feeling being of dense matter. Unwittingly I stumble along paths often overgrown and sometimes scary. I am fearful of the shadow lurking in the long grass as much as I fear the manicured lawn and its desire to constrain.

Words, words, words. Have I described myself, or could these words pertain to anyone, everyone? Are we universal, that traits held tentatively by one, can be thrown around loosely by another and yet, both come up with the same definition? The same meaning? Is my self-doubt like another’s? If I know you do I therefore know thyself? These words seem full yet remain empty, saying nothing of the depth or breath/breadth contained within them. Know thyself? On a good day, yes, on a bad day, more so. Reflected in the eyes of others? How they know me and how I know myself are often at odds, sometimes traveling paths skewered across worlds of diversity and difference. Some see me bathed in kindness, some do not. Some are more compassionate than I am to myself.

People’s perceptions may be flavoured by their own kindness, generosity, baggage or handicaps, but they possess a knowledge that eludes me. This external manifestation brings me back to my question: how am I seen? Maybe my question is problematic? Rather than ask for visual, or even audio or olfactory clues, perhaps I could learn more if I were to understand how I was experienced? Semantics? Perhaps. But, is the experience of myself the knowing of thyself? Would I ‘know thyself’ by knowing the things I like or not like, reflected in experience? Things like freedom, sunshine, commitment, love, openness, laughter, joy, a playful wind in my hair – blowing it off my face rather than like a tumbleweed. Or is experience even larger than this? The events, the incidents, the stories I carry in my heart, in my cells, the wrinkles on my face; a life time of memories pulsating and flowing through my blood. 

Can I know thyself though my work? This offers me a far safer route, to take an outward step into the real and tangible. It offers a spacious quality that seems less intrusive. Oh, I would much rather define myself by the projects I have created. Specks of brain matter transformed into living breathing works of art that add a voice, a perspective, an exploration and deepening understanding of the world we live in. To personify these works and anchor them in the human experience. My experience. This suggests that ‘knowing thyself’ need not necessarily be understood through interaction with the world, but through vision, creativity and creation. I remember a director who once told me that every performance says more about the director than the play. Perhaps I should replace the idea of know thyself with Portray thyself. But then this was not etched into antiquity.

Stepping quietly away from the glare of projection, judgement and bias of reflection, be that friend or foe’s perceptions, I consider a scientific approach. According to Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types we can be characterised by

1. Preference of general attitude - extrovert/introvert
2. Preference of one of the two functions of perception – Sensing/Intuition
3. Preference of one of the two functions of judging – Thinking/Feeling
4. Preference of either the function of Judging or Perceiving

The first criterion signifies the source of a person’s energy expression – inward or outward. The second refers to how people receive information, again internal or external. The third represents how we process information and makes decisions, while the last purports to how we implement the information we have processed.

Lo and behold, online there is a Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test. The test is free and also references the more familiar Myer-Briggs test designed by Isabel Myer-Briggs. 

My type? INFP.  I have a slight preference of introversion over extroversion. I have a slight preference of Intuition over Sensing. I have a moderate preference of Feeling over Thinking and I have a slight preference of Perceiving over Judging. 

The results resonate and I am pleased with what I read. I am proud of these traits and the description tells a wonderful story of this amazing person who “never seems to lose (my) sense of wonder … has the ability to see good in almost anyone or anything … (although my) extreme depth of feeling is often hidden, even from themselves (!)” Apparently, I also have a sense of failed competence while I “struggle with (my) own ethical perfection.”

This is delicious.

Yet, even while I can see my traits on paper there still remains a chasm, an abyss between the words that describe and the life that lives. I do not seem able to make that leap between the two. Know thyself remains a foreign concept despite my attempt to exhort meaning through expressing what I do know. It lacks a vital three-dimensional aspect. I have read that you cannot write unless you know yourself. What hope is there in that? I write and form narratives out of my experience to make sense of that experience. I am writing fiction which is all about the unknown.

I am aware of hesitation, greeting me shyly in this doorway of revelation. An exploration as this is such a deeply personal journey. Would it be better kept hidden within the pages of a confidential and private journal? Not displayed, on show in a public blog, accessible to all, to any? For all who may not understand; for any who might judge or use this information in ways unknown; even for those who feel united by virtue of some identified connection. Would such musings be best to remain concealed and shrouded in the isolation and solitude of unread texts and undecipherable note-books? Is it a good thing for the intimacy of thoughts, misgivings, perceptions of ones’ self to be shared? 

If I were to remove the ‘I’, make it ‘she’ and thereby distance myself, I could quietly position such  explorations within a narrative around a fictional character who has a freedom unavailable to me. A freedom to expose herself in the contemplation of her essence of self, to know thyself.

Softly, softly, the blossoming of a chapter may emerge from this prose and delicately metamorphose  into Sara’s ruminations. 

I may however, need to drop the reference to Carl Jung.

Jung's Personality Test