Dan's Webpage: Because everyone loves a farce: The occasional Dan

Every now and then I do something, or maybe just think something, that seems to represent for me some kernel of who I really am. Of course, I can't easily sum up exactly what it would mean for me to be essentially Dan — theoretically I'm always doing that, like in the old joke about eating in China — but suffice it to say that it's a satisfying feeling.

Like an epiphany of personal integrity, if being true to yourself can mean being cynical and even rude sometimes. Integriphany?

Presumably my life is ideal when such moments occur with highest possible frequency.

Well... I'm not sure if that's true, since lately the satisfaction of acting like I know I should seems to have involved a lot of shooting myself in the foot.

Copy-editing rule #103: A dilemma has horns.

Still, however I happen upon a kernel, it's a pretty great feeling.

On the other hand, when I realize that I'm not living up to the person I see in the kernels — not because I'm sitting at home being boring, mind you, because I don't see that I have to entertain any invisible spectators, but certainly when I'm making the wrong, easy choices — it's profoundly disappointing. You'd think that it would be harder to forget.

I'll probably go to my grave wishing I'd called more people out. And wishing I'd been less standoffish/shy/introverted around the people I actually do like, because this cuts both ways.

I can't be my idealized self — who knows how alike we actually are. And besides, that's hardly even a whole person... How does he toast bread? Where does he buy stamps? What's his drinking tolerance?

(I'm "heroic lightweight" myself; is there really an ideal drinking weightclass?)

I guess I'm left wishing that my character intersected with his more often. Maybe it's a matter of seeing the chances I'm missing, the opportunities to own up.

Or maybe it's like Burnout 3. My car is so fast now that the only way I seem to be able to win a race is by zoning into the music and letting my unconscious worry about the obstacles.

You think too much about yourself and your character, I think.

There is no "you" that you should "be more like" (I don't know who I'm quoting here). You're just you, you are who you are, you do what you do, you're living your life.

We all have regrets, sure. We all wish we would have not said that stupid thing, gone after that girl we've always secretly loved, avoided that car accident, or have somehow prevented the death of a loved one by means of interventionist and revisionist time travel.

And there's a value in that, I guess. Thinking about those things in terms of what to do the next time around--how to live one's life somehow "better" or truer to one's values and ideals.

But I don't think there's something quintessential about us as individuals that we're somehow betraying when we do something that may not fit our 'character.' Because we're not characters, and all the world is not a stage.

And if you have the sense that you should be 'someone' that's different than who you are 'being', if you get what I mean, then you should ask yourself where that idea comes from. Is it you seeing a reflection of what other people think you should be? If that, then you're just playing to fulfill people's expectations of you. And there's no way that could be fulfilling any personal teleology. If it's pure self-reflection and self-criticism or self-judgment (which in any case, I believe, would arise from our own considerations of what others must be thinking of us), then you have to ask yourself what the point is.

I don't think this is the case with you, but if you find yourself disappointed with yourself, isn't that kind of dumb? I think all this reflexive, reflective splitting ourselves into multiple identities where one is judging the other and a third is trying to get them to play nice is really more a function of a thorough and utter mediatization of the self, in that the stories we've been told and the discursive and literary world we grow up in makes us think that we ought to be fulfilling certain archetypes or, better yet, fleshing ourselves out as coherent characters that would make for great drama, comedy, or, god help you, an after-school special.

So I guess my point is that there's little point to a kind of reflection in which you are pitting the real you against an idealized version of yourself. Because that you is a shallow, one-dimensional conception of a virtuous and steadfastly pure being that not only cannot possibly exist, but shouldn't even be a model for judging ourselves.

We shouldn't judge ourselves any more than we should judge others, because just as "they are who they are" so to are you and so to am I.

Plus, I thought the whole point of atheism was that there isn't any all-knowing being sitting in judgement upon your character. Why replace that external omnipotent judge with an internal omnipotent judge that truly knows all your sins, vices, failures, vanities, and fears?

Because it's a lot easier to go to confession and ask for the absolution of your sins than it is to live with the feeling that you're not being the person you ought to be being.

Meiner Meinung nach.

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think a lot of what you wrote is correct, but the final thrust of it all seems to be a critique of self-reflection in general. You're right, I'm not disapointed in myself... but I think that, as long as I understand that he's not a real person and never will be, the attempt to more closely approximate my ideal self is worthwhile.

You write that "We shouldn't judge ourselves any more than we should judge others, because just as 'they are who they are' so to are you and so to am I." But I do judge others, all the time. Usually in the way that you might judge whether some artwork jibes with your taste, but sometimes even in the moral sense. In fact, part of my appreciation for some of my Lawrence friends comes from my favorable judgement of their judgments of other people.

I see it as hypocritical not to turn this critical eye on myself, the only person I really have the right to mold to my liking. I'd like to think that atheism actually obligates me to do this, unless I want to be a craven "try-er" shaped by others... or a complete jerk, I guess?