When we consciously acknowledge and accept who we are and our desires, we might find we are more open, honest and true to ourselves. However, it's hard to answer WHO ARE YOU?
We’ve talked about self-awareness previously, here is the Johari Window as a reminder;
In contrast, intersubjective reality is a term that allows us to explore things that are a reality only because they are intersubjective; 'Existing between conscious minds; shared by more than one conscious mind' (1). So not just our own belief or desires.
A good way to think of this is to take an example of anything that has value purely due to the collective belief system surrounding it, such as; money. Equally, this principle could be used to explain many of the societal norms:
- profligacious hierarchies in institutions
- the need for academic qualifications over personal characteristics
- time
- the age at which we 'grow up'
- traditional family setup
- eating three meals a day
- marriage
- wearing bra's
- wearing pants
- wearing clothes full stop
- schooling
- the latest fashion
- working the hours of 9-5
- working 5 days a week
We know humans are a sucker for routine. It only stands to reason therefore that we have used our ability to 'co-operate flexibly and in large numbers' (2) to strengthen routine, habit, traditions, regimes even dictatorships and so on...
This conforming is known as the 'descriptive norm effect' (3) its why we call the police if we witness a crime, but it's also why we do things that perhaps aren't true to ourselves, it's why there have been so many societal blunders in history.
One of the aims of NotLostbutFree is to always encourage participants to find out who they really are. Not to get too nihilistic on you, but you create your own purpose in this world so make it a good one. Harking back to Johari and his window; explore your unknown self by surrounding yourself with others, show your hidden self so your true and little by little your blind self will reduce.
It is easy to get lost in the rat race (in case you didn't know this term compares humans to rats attempting to earn their cheesy reward, to no avail) so sit down and ask yourself;
What do you:
Love -
Want to do -
Have the goal of -
Remember being afraid of -
Feel driven by -
Feel inspired by -
Notice in the world -
Have a habit of -
Notice makes you happiest -
Get disappointed by -
Wish you could -
Believe in -
One day want to achieve -
These key questions help us to explore our self-awareness, to consider 'what we used to be afraid of' and when did this change? how did it change?
Questions that may be harder are asking what we 'have a habit of' and what we are 'disappointed by' - these are often examples of things that others may notice before us and hide in our 'known to others, not known to self' window.
Asking ourselves such questions allow us to open up our true self and issue a reminder of what we are aiming for. They allow us to reconsider any 'norms' we may have fallen prey to without conscious choice.
Imagine asking an ape to swap a banana for money, its swift response would probably be 'what do you think I am, human?'. So remember, and to quote a good friend (Bam Bam read her blog here), 'if your going to jump on the roller coaster of society and buy the latest designer sofa, at least choose to'.
TTFN, Becky.
references
1 Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow.
2 The Oxford Dictionary
3 Pryor, Campbell & Perfors, Amy & D. L. Howe, Piers. (2019). Even arbitrary norms influence moral decision-making. Nature Human Behaviour. 3. 10.1038/s41562-018-0489-y.
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