reflections
Another from a series of articles I wrote, this one on
I know few people with healthy self esteem. Of my friends, uniformly intelligent, reflective and introspective I know of none who do not struggle to keep their negative self image in check. My observation of others, fellow workers, acquaintances and the like, reveal a similar pattern although the individuals, lacking the habit or skill of introspection seem less aware of their state. In both cases this state creates patterns of compensation, over-compensation and impaired value judgments.
Possibly the most common behavior (in my humble observation and not particularly well documented opinion) is an over-compensatory arrogance or confidence. As most people lack the insight to see past even a poor imitation of real confidence, even the most simple mask will be treated as the real thing. In my case, I realised this whilst role playing confident characters. I began to act more confidently and was treated as though I were confident. This fuelled my growing confidence and, in time, the act became the reality. Few seem to make this step, however, and remain in the state of artificial confidence. Perhaps, in achieving this state, they have sated their desire - to be treated a certain way - and hence have no further impetus to progress. Perhaps it is only the introspective, whose motivation is more internal, who will manage to move beyond this level of illusion.
This is not to suggest that self reflection will cure all ills. Again, speaking personally, the fact that I do spend so much time contemplating my navel means that I can subdivide self-esteem into self-confidence (can I _do_ something), self-worth (if I can do this, how worthy a person does this make me), and self-value (how much do others/does society value this ability). Whilst my confidence is ridiculously high, my worth is rocky and my value abysmal. I know, on various levels, that all it would take to raise my worth is to move to a state less concerned about doing and more concerned with being and that I should let value slip away as being trivial. I am, however, a child of my times and so am subject to cultural values provided by my parents, peers, media and pop culture.
Parents are a well documented influence on the values that children learn and continue to hold for most of their lives. Many find with horror that they have become their parents as they grow older. Yet, having never questioned those values, could they be anything else? Our parent's fears of their own inadequacies may have lead to their own over-exaggerated sense of worth (fear of failure may exaggerate the worth of success, fear of loneliness may bind children so tightly that they are stifled etc). Their hurts, their lack of self esteem and the way they are expressed are passed on. One parent hurt by lack of emotion becomes cold and distant and so passes that lack on to their child.
In that regard, it would seem (again from observation of friends) that many of our parents (mostly male) seem to have had some issues regarding closeness. We seem to have a group of people whose father's could not overcome their own conditioning, self-esteem issues and/or emotional castration to take the chance of sharing their selves with their children. Most of us have come from families where paternal love was absent, inappropriately expressed or in a few cases grossly abused. We have, each of us, a deep need for this love, acceptance, validation and affirmation. We seek this desperately, yet almost fail to see it when it is there. Part of me knows and appreciates (what a pale word that is for the deep sense of gratitude and value I hold) the love in which I am held by my friends, yet another part hungers for this so much that it is hard to see the love I have in perspective. In part, this is because what I am really seeking has passed forever and I have not yet fully let go of that, partly it is because the love I receive is not quite that which I want.
Society does not help in this regard. Our childhood, trapped with people our own natal age but vastly different in maturity, forced into situations that in an adult world we would be free to withdraw from and often ignored by those who are nominally supposed to protect us from the pain of these situations, reinforces many of these early hurts or creates new ones. Children are often savage. Their ability to empathise with others varies considerably, those who are more ruthlessly selfish will seize on weakness and exploit it - never mind that it does them no immediate good, they are either reiterating the lessons they have learned or, more generally, pushing everyone else down so that they are better in comparison.
Elaborate social power plays are created. As we cannot withdraw, we must participate. As was pointed out to me, the only people who do not participate in the pecking order are the top and bottom. The bottom has one form of behavior, if you seek to withdraw (as I did) and do not behave as the bottom, you are seen as the top and are attacked relentlessly as a result. Those who do well in this environment suffer less attacks, their hurts are less often exposed, their pain let lie. This creates a new need (or reinforces an older one), that of popular acceptance. Safety lies in the crowd's acceptance, in blending, in being accepted. We are often too young to realise that we need this acceptance for other reasons and simply come to need acceptance. Again, speaking from personal experience, I attempted to withdraw from this state. I recognised the power others would have over me if I allowed myself to acknowledge this need and attempted to reject it. Still I am left with a battered self esteem. Despite the fact that those people are at least a dozen years gone I still feel an ache at their rejection. I am struggling to let that hurt go, to stop trying to fill it (an impossible task) so that it can heal properly, but it is hard.
The media plays on these fears. We live in a society that is driven by consumerism. Once someone has a product, the only way to sell them another is to make them want it. Whether by design or simply evolution, one inexhaustible resource seems to be people's inadequacies. If you can link your product to a solution of one of society's common hurts, then your product will sell. Of course, if you want to sell it again, that solution needs to be illusory, temporary and, like most drugs, addictivly creating the need it sates. The message is insidious. Drink X-brand cola and you will be popular, have fun, be liked, respected, have adventure and excitement. Some part accepts this message. We buy X-brand, others see this and react, if only subtly, as though we are more popular, more adventurous and the like. It is subtle but real.
Less subtle is the constant bombardment of images of what is attractive or beautiful. We are invited to voyeuristically watch other people's lives - we are encouraged to live vicariously rather than pursue our own goals. Our competition is not our fellows, humans with faults and flaws, we are expected to compete with beauty air-brushed free of imperfection, distorted to unnatural proportions, selected from thousands (if not millions) to appear just so under this lighting and these conditions. Our icons are expected to act without flaw, or if flawed, these flaws are of soap operatic proportion; simple problems, often swiftly resolved; dramatic flaws, often without any secondary problems or underlying cause; resolutions that conveniently ignore problems that would cripple a 'normal' relationship. Those figures who live in the public eye are subjected to the scrutiny and judgment of millions. When they break free from the idolisation, when their human flaws are shown, we feel betrayed, the dream has been broken.
Even if we manage to isolate ourselves from these influences, those around us have not and do not. We pick up these values from our peers and associates, how they react to us, to our values, to our opinions are a reinforcement of society's, and hence the media's, values. Perhaps I have been too long divorced from society to see clearly the benefits it offers, but from where I stand, there is no healing offered for self esteem, just 'drugs' to distract and dull, that prove ever less effective and require greater and greater doses to do what we crave of them.
My solution, the only one I have found that satisfies me, is to reject, as best I can, the majority of social values, accepting only enough to allow interaction with my fellow citizens. To create a series of values based on consideration of my needs, realistic appraisals of what are truly needs, what are wants and how these can be achieved. I seek to surround myself with people who, if not sharing my values, will at least respect them as my values and not simply parrot to me those values society provides. I can think of no other way to heal these wounds of mine than to place myself in an environment that is supportive to this quest and then look to my self for those things I need, not what I am told I need.
I know few people with healthy self esteem. Of my friends, uniformly intelligent, reflective and introspective I know of none who do not struggle to keep their negative self image in check. My observation of others, fellow workers, acquaintances and the like, reveal a similar pattern although the individuals, lacking the habit or skill of introspection seem less aware of their state. In both cases this state creates patterns of compensation, over-compensation and impaired value judgments.
Possibly the most common behavior (in my humble observation and not particularly well documented opinion) is an over-compensatory arrogance or confidence. As most people lack the insight to see past even a poor imitation of real confidence, even the most simple mask will be treated as the real thing. In my case, I realised this whilst role playing confident characters. I began to act more confidently and was treated as though I were confident. This fuelled my growing confidence and, in time, the act became the reality. Few seem to make this step, however, and remain in the state of artificial confidence. Perhaps, in achieving this state, they have sated their desire - to be treated a certain way - and hence have no further impetus to progress. Perhaps it is only the introspective, whose motivation is more internal, who will manage to move beyond this level of illusion.
This is not to suggest that self reflection will cure all ills. Again, speaking personally, the fact that I do spend so much time contemplating my navel means that I can subdivide self-esteem into self-confidence (can I _do_ something), self-worth (if I can do this, how worthy a person does this make me), and self-value (how much do others/does society value this ability). Whilst my confidence is ridiculously high, my worth is rocky and my value abysmal. I know, on various levels, that all it would take to raise my worth is to move to a state less concerned about doing and more concerned with being and that I should let value slip away as being trivial. I am, however, a child of my times and so am subject to cultural values provided by my parents, peers, media and pop culture.
Parents are a well documented influence on the values that children learn and continue to hold for most of their lives. Many find with horror that they have become their parents as they grow older. Yet, having never questioned those values, could they be anything else? Our parent's fears of their own inadequacies may have lead to their own over-exaggerated sense of worth (fear of failure may exaggerate the worth of success, fear of loneliness may bind children so tightly that they are stifled etc). Their hurts, their lack of self esteem and the way they are expressed are passed on. One parent hurt by lack of emotion becomes cold and distant and so passes that lack on to their child.
In that regard, it would seem (again from observation of friends) that many of our parents (mostly male) seem to have had some issues regarding closeness. We seem to have a group of people whose father's could not overcome their own conditioning, self-esteem issues and/or emotional castration to take the chance of sharing their selves with their children. Most of us have come from families where paternal love was absent, inappropriately expressed or in a few cases grossly abused. We have, each of us, a deep need for this love, acceptance, validation and affirmation. We seek this desperately, yet almost fail to see it when it is there. Part of me knows and appreciates (what a pale word that is for the deep sense of gratitude and value I hold) the love in which I am held by my friends, yet another part hungers for this so much that it is hard to see the love I have in perspective. In part, this is because what I am really seeking has passed forever and I have not yet fully let go of that, partly it is because the love I receive is not quite that which I want.
Society does not help in this regard. Our childhood, trapped with people our own natal age but vastly different in maturity, forced into situations that in an adult world we would be free to withdraw from and often ignored by those who are nominally supposed to protect us from the pain of these situations, reinforces many of these early hurts or creates new ones. Children are often savage. Their ability to empathise with others varies considerably, those who are more ruthlessly selfish will seize on weakness and exploit it - never mind that it does them no immediate good, they are either reiterating the lessons they have learned or, more generally, pushing everyone else down so that they are better in comparison.
Elaborate social power plays are created. As we cannot withdraw, we must participate. As was pointed out to me, the only people who do not participate in the pecking order are the top and bottom. The bottom has one form of behavior, if you seek to withdraw (as I did) and do not behave as the bottom, you are seen as the top and are attacked relentlessly as a result. Those who do well in this environment suffer less attacks, their hurts are less often exposed, their pain let lie. This creates a new need (or reinforces an older one), that of popular acceptance. Safety lies in the crowd's acceptance, in blending, in being accepted. We are often too young to realise that we need this acceptance for other reasons and simply come to need acceptance. Again, speaking from personal experience, I attempted to withdraw from this state. I recognised the power others would have over me if I allowed myself to acknowledge this need and attempted to reject it. Still I am left with a battered self esteem. Despite the fact that those people are at least a dozen years gone I still feel an ache at their rejection. I am struggling to let that hurt go, to stop trying to fill it (an impossible task) so that it can heal properly, but it is hard.
The media plays on these fears. We live in a society that is driven by consumerism. Once someone has a product, the only way to sell them another is to make them want it. Whether by design or simply evolution, one inexhaustible resource seems to be people's inadequacies. If you can link your product to a solution of one of society's common hurts, then your product will sell. Of course, if you want to sell it again, that solution needs to be illusory, temporary and, like most drugs, addictivly creating the need it sates. The message is insidious. Drink X-brand cola and you will be popular, have fun, be liked, respected, have adventure and excitement. Some part accepts this message. We buy X-brand, others see this and react, if only subtly, as though we are more popular, more adventurous and the like. It is subtle but real.
Less subtle is the constant bombardment of images of what is attractive or beautiful. We are invited to voyeuristically watch other people's lives - we are encouraged to live vicariously rather than pursue our own goals. Our competition is not our fellows, humans with faults and flaws, we are expected to compete with beauty air-brushed free of imperfection, distorted to unnatural proportions, selected from thousands (if not millions) to appear just so under this lighting and these conditions. Our icons are expected to act without flaw, or if flawed, these flaws are of soap operatic proportion; simple problems, often swiftly resolved; dramatic flaws, often without any secondary problems or underlying cause; resolutions that conveniently ignore problems that would cripple a 'normal' relationship. Those figures who live in the public eye are subjected to the scrutiny and judgment of millions. When they break free from the idolisation, when their human flaws are shown, we feel betrayed, the dream has been broken.
Even if we manage to isolate ourselves from these influences, those around us have not and do not. We pick up these values from our peers and associates, how they react to us, to our values, to our opinions are a reinforcement of society's, and hence the media's, values. Perhaps I have been too long divorced from society to see clearly the benefits it offers, but from where I stand, there is no healing offered for self esteem, just 'drugs' to distract and dull, that prove ever less effective and require greater and greater doses to do what we crave of them.
My solution, the only one I have found that satisfies me, is to reject, as best I can, the majority of social values, accepting only enough to allow interaction with my fellow citizens. To create a series of values based on consideration of my needs, realistic appraisals of what are truly needs, what are wants and how these can be achieved. I seek to surround myself with people who, if not sharing my values, will at least respect them as my values and not simply parrot to me those values society provides. I can think of no other way to heal these wounds of mine than to place myself in an environment that is supportive to this quest and then look to my self for those things I need, not what I am told I need.