Self-esteem is a term used by almost everyone these days. I often find myself talking to people about this concept but very quickly realise that neither the person that I'm talking to nor myself have any idea what precisely we mean by this. So do we mean that a person thinks highly about themselves because they do? Or do we mean that everyone has a scale somewhere in their mind where they measure their self worth at any given time based on what other people think about them? Or something else entirely?
Over the years I've started to build up a mental list of the properties that self-esteem has:
1. It distorts reality
2. It varies from day to day, place to place
3. Too little is very painful
4. Too little makes people act in desperate and self-destructive ways
5. Too much makes a person very difficult to deal with
6. Despite being called 'self'-esteem most people don't give it to themselves.
7. The qualities that a person has that boost their self-esteem are quite subjective.
First I want to talk about where people get self-esteem.
Some people just seem to be content and happy with themselves and their lot. Others are disappointed and with their bodies, lives and lot in life. There are lots of theories as to why self-esteem varies so much across the population. Most of them relate to how our parents raised us, did they encourage and praise us as children or were they jealous and over critical? Others suggest that it is a genetically determined trait and that naturally some people think they are awesome and others think that they are trash.
I'm not completely satisfied with either of these viewpoints because self-esteem can vary a from day to day and sometimes minute to minute. Therefore there is definitely some plasticisty in self-esteem. When I'm poor I don't feel very attractive, but give me a wad of cash and I instantly feel sexier. Also, when my friends hug me and tell me how much they appreciate me I feel much happier about myself. Also, when people don't smile at me or respond when I say 'good morning' to them I often feel low for the rest of the day.
For an interesting article about how happiness spreads click here.
So it would appear we get a good portion of our self-esteem from other people. This is a very important point... having friends and family who reinforce a positive self-image is something one can control to a degree. As always with these things one would want friends to reciprocate any pro-esteem building activities in as close to equal measures as possible. But at the end of that day this is the reason why 'no man is an island' <-- a great deal of our happiness depends on positive communications and experience with other people.
Then there's the fact that ones perception of the world is altered dramatically depending on how much self-esteem they have. People with low self-esteem under estimate their value, over estimate the importance of other people, deny themselves things other people would freely take and often develop a cynical and bleak view on relationships. Whereas people with high self-esteem will over estimate their importance, dismiss other people as being less valuable and feel entitled to give themselves more breaks and perks thn other people. They will also think life is pretty damn good to them except for all of the other useless people getting in their way, perhaps.
I find changes in my self-esteem level disconcerting because I can see how they alter my spending patterns and decisions in relationships. Again, I'm a bit of a control freak and desire consistently in what I do so changes in self-esteem make me feel doubtful about my intellectual and creative abilities. Although really, unless the change is dramatic it doesn't appear noticeable to most people and I really do enjoy the odd spending spree!
When one has very low self-esteem one is left virtually defenceless and continuously embattled in relationships... it seems like a cruel trick because just having higher self-esteem can rescue struggling relationships but low self-esteem seems to destroy them totally even if the initial problems weren't that serious.
So surely it is best to have high self-esteem rather than low self-esteem? Well... I think the dangers of suicide and emotional trauma are lower for people with high self-esteem but at the same time everyone has worked for a boss whose high self-esteem does nothing back create frustration and inefficiently in the work place. Some form of moderation for self-esteem is needed. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest we just ditch this whole concept of self-esteem because it just isn't helpful: it is unclear what it means and actually serves to create more confusion about where real problems lie.
The more I think about it the problems of self-esteem are all just problems of relating to people. Fix your relationships with people and the esteem problems will disappear. The key to having good relationships is having them rooted in honesty, empathy and mutual reciprocation of needs. These elements all help to curb delusion and get things into perspective.
To illustrate what I mean by the lack of perspective and the delusions of self-esteem let's look at the things that boost people's self-esteem.
Being physically attractive
Being appreciated for kindness
Being listened to / respected
Being accepted as a valuable part of a community
Being talented in a rare or unique way
Physically attractive people feel good about themselves because everyone around them treats them with special attention and admiration. Not because they deserve it but because they might have won a genetic lottery. I'm unconvinced by this genetically superior argument as a great number of important people in history were physically ugly, infertile or homosexual and not beautiful heterosexual models of physical perfection. Rabbits demonstrate to us that want breeds quickly and efficiently isn't necessarily useful or desireable to civilisation. If you want to know more about how physically attractive people are really a burden on society read this article carefully.
So really, what all of these things point too is that by treating everyone with kindness, respect and dignity we can eliminate all self-esteem problems. By treating some people with special reverence simply because they are higher up the heirarchy or they look like great sex warmed up then you're unwittingly creating/perpetuating the very social order that grinds down on everyone. While investing time into developing a useful skill or talent is a sure way to boost your happiness.
I'm an atheist and I've just argued through reason that kindness, respect, understanding and self-discipline are universally good ideals to strive for. I did this without appealing to a supernatural entity. What's more, my explanation why it is so can be tested by experiment and observation. Also that maybe we should seriously consider deleting the concept of 'self-esteem' from our lexicons because it moves the focus away from what we can do to what we are. We can't change what we are, but we can change what we do.
15 January, 2010
12 January, 2010
Hiatus
Dear fans and followers,
Although I'm bursting at the seems with ideas to write about, current events in my life are too overwhelming for me to find the time write another installment just yet. Be assured though that once I'm fully rested with some spare time I'll tell you what I've learned recently.
Yours sincerely,
Aristotle
Although I'm bursting at the seems with ideas to write about, current events in my life are too overwhelming for me to find the time write another installment just yet. Be assured though that once I'm fully rested with some spare time I'll tell you what I've learned recently.
Yours sincerely,
Aristotle
02 January, 2010
In the Absence of Fear
I was thinking about my next thought experiment last night. It is a simple but profound one. Imagine yourself in a situation, maybe with a friend, talking to a superior, shopping or planning your next life changing decision. Think about what you would normally do in this situation. Then think about what you would do in that situation if you had no sense of fear.
When I find the actions of myself and my friends predictable it is only because I have gotten acquainted with what scares us. Knowing what scares someone allows one to accurately predict their reaction to a situation... but I think you'll find as I did after running that thought experiment through your mind a few times to its logical conclusion that the end result is extremely unpredictable and even suicidal in behaviour.
But it is interesting, yes? Just how many of our decisions in life are made out of love (in this sense our desire to do something we personally believe in) and how many are made out of fear (in this sense our desire to manage our insecurities)?
I have developed this model of insecurity management vs creative adventurism to explain human decision making.
Insecurity management is about making decisions to placate our fears relating to death, harm, loss, rejection, ostracism and uncertainty. These fears could be real, such as avoiding walking across a floor covered in glass shards with bare feet, or they could be imaginary, such as fearing that someone is telepathically reading your mind. I personally think purely imaginary fears are quite rare and the vast number of fears people have do have a rational basis. What I'm far more concerned with is over expressed fears. That is fears we respect even though the consequences of ignoring them are next to harmless or less severe than if we did otherwise.
Self-consciousness is a good example of this. A person may fear that they have a physical defect, which honestly, we all have physical defects so that is a rational fear, so they avoid social interaction because they're afraid of people not accept them because of it. While it is quite distressing to realise that you might have a physical defect that limits your enjoyment of life compared to other people, the consequences of fearing that other people will reject you and thus avoiding social interaction altogether are far more harmful than ignoring that fear.
Just to clarify I'm being very broad in my definition of physical defects in the above paragraph, I'm including beauty spots, facial assymetries along with more serious ones like heart and kidney defects. Defects that make us less than perfectly beautiful are present in everyone and the source of much anxiety for most people - even though they are hardly life threatening by themselves. They are far more dangerous when we over express our fear about their impact on our lives.
Pushing against insecurity management is creative adventurism. This is our desire to explore new experiences. New romances, deeper connections with existing relationships, new hobbies, new interests, new ways of doing the same thing. Basically our desire to be creative and inventive. From fixing a squeaky gate to changing our career. This is our desire to grow, explore and live.
This sounds really beautiful, and it is because this is where we get our enjoyment out of life. Pushing new frontiers. This is what makes life worth living.
It is also the biggest source of insecurity in our lives.
It is the source of our desire to put ourselves into harm's way, it is our desire to stop an abuser, it is our desire to risk our friendships and money for something that very likely will not be worth the cost of losing that money or those friends. It is our desire to challenge our society, parents and leaders... which might lead to greater freedom, happiness and prosperity... or to brutal and fatal retaliation from them. Making the first move into unexplored territory is always the scariest venture. Even if just for the risk of putting in weeks, months or years of effort into a project, book or relationship only to find it leads nowhere.
So... insecurity management is important... it keeps us safe, and our lives stable and predictable. But it doesn't make us happy either.
Then there's creative adventurism which offers us all the thrills and excitement of living. But it just might kill/destroy/harm us in the quest for a better life.
Clearly the two sides of this see-saw need to be in balance somehow. We need to work on our insecurities and discover if we over express them or if we have too many that they cripple our ability to enjoy life. Sometimes we need to look at our desire to challenge and attack the status quo and ask if you're investing your time in a rebellious act that is actually helping yourself, your friends and your community... or just creating new problems for them?
This is all about becoming less ignorant about why one does certain things so that we can both be more productive and enjoy our lives more.
When I find the actions of myself and my friends predictable it is only because I have gotten acquainted with what scares us. Knowing what scares someone allows one to accurately predict their reaction to a situation... but I think you'll find as I did after running that thought experiment through your mind a few times to its logical conclusion that the end result is extremely unpredictable and even suicidal in behaviour.
But it is interesting, yes? Just how many of our decisions in life are made out of love (in this sense our desire to do something we personally believe in) and how many are made out of fear (in this sense our desire to manage our insecurities)?
I have developed this model of insecurity management vs creative adventurism to explain human decision making.
Insecurity management is about making decisions to placate our fears relating to death, harm, loss, rejection, ostracism and uncertainty. These fears could be real, such as avoiding walking across a floor covered in glass shards with bare feet, or they could be imaginary, such as fearing that someone is telepathically reading your mind. I personally think purely imaginary fears are quite rare and the vast number of fears people have do have a rational basis. What I'm far more concerned with is over expressed fears. That is fears we respect even though the consequences of ignoring them are next to harmless or less severe than if we did otherwise.
Self-consciousness is a good example of this. A person may fear that they have a physical defect, which honestly, we all have physical defects so that is a rational fear, so they avoid social interaction because they're afraid of people not accept them because of it. While it is quite distressing to realise that you might have a physical defect that limits your enjoyment of life compared to other people, the consequences of fearing that other people will reject you and thus avoiding social interaction altogether are far more harmful than ignoring that fear.
Just to clarify I'm being very broad in my definition of physical defects in the above paragraph, I'm including beauty spots, facial assymetries along with more serious ones like heart and kidney defects. Defects that make us less than perfectly beautiful are present in everyone and the source of much anxiety for most people - even though they are hardly life threatening by themselves. They are far more dangerous when we over express our fear about their impact on our lives.
Pushing against insecurity management is creative adventurism. This is our desire to explore new experiences. New romances, deeper connections with existing relationships, new hobbies, new interests, new ways of doing the same thing. Basically our desire to be creative and inventive. From fixing a squeaky gate to changing our career. This is our desire to grow, explore and live.
This sounds really beautiful, and it is because this is where we get our enjoyment out of life. Pushing new frontiers. This is what makes life worth living.
It is also the biggest source of insecurity in our lives.
It is the source of our desire to put ourselves into harm's way, it is our desire to stop an abuser, it is our desire to risk our friendships and money for something that very likely will not be worth the cost of losing that money or those friends. It is our desire to challenge our society, parents and leaders... which might lead to greater freedom, happiness and prosperity... or to brutal and fatal retaliation from them. Making the first move into unexplored territory is always the scariest venture. Even if just for the risk of putting in weeks, months or years of effort into a project, book or relationship only to find it leads nowhere.
So... insecurity management is important... it keeps us safe, and our lives stable and predictable. But it doesn't make us happy either.
Then there's creative adventurism which offers us all the thrills and excitement of living. But it just might kill/destroy/harm us in the quest for a better life.
Clearly the two sides of this see-saw need to be in balance somehow. We need to work on our insecurities and discover if we over express them or if we have too many that they cripple our ability to enjoy life. Sometimes we need to look at our desire to challenge and attack the status quo and ask if you're investing your time in a rebellious act that is actually helping yourself, your friends and your community... or just creating new problems for them?
This is all about becoming less ignorant about why one does certain things so that we can both be more productive and enjoy our lives more.
01 January, 2010
Atheism and Ignorance
Last night someone I love told me that they had decided to marry someone they had first met about two weeks earlier and asked me to wish them luck. (Yes, this has happened to me before at least once). We've been friends for almost 18 months now and I've found her to be very thoughtful and intelligent on every topic... except romantic relationships. When a child talks about love at first sight and Disney-like fairy tales of meeting the handsome, dashing and perfect man it's cute. When someone with a post graduate degree talks about these things to me I quickly find myself pondering if maybe virginity is something that ought to be lost at the earliest convenient time in ones life.
She asked me to wish her luck... I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation.
See this is where sexually knowledgeable and sexually ignorant cultures diverge.
A sexually ignorant culture prefers arranged marriages and people never talking about sex. Why? Because if you don't know anything about boys/girls and having sexual relationships with them then making a choice is very scary - thus having that choice made for you is something of a relief... especially since the people making the decision are sexually experienced (aka the parents). The next 'advantage' is that if one only has one sexual partner and one type of sexual experience then one will assume that that's all sex is. So when people talk about sex non-descriptively, that's what one will imagine it to be.
But what if you hear friends talking about their sex lives and they seem more interesting and exciting than your own? Once knowledge of other people's sex lives becomes known to you the tendancy is that one will start to compare ones sex life to theirs and start to wonder, "Do I have the best sex life I could have?"
How does a sexually ignorant culture deal with this? Demanding better sex? Demanding the right to explore their sexuality? Demanding to know what this sex thing is all about?
No. They simply don't talk about it. That's why we don't talk about sex with our friends over dinner. Because if we lose the protective shield of our ignorance about sex then we are going to be assaulted by our insecurities. We are going to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions like:
I am a good lover?
Is my partner a good lover?
Is our sex life the best it could be?
Would I enjoy sex more with that person than my spouse?
People say that arranged marriages are more successful because they don't have as high a divorce rate.
I am aware that this is a ridiculous statement for many reasons but just for now I'm going to ignore most of them and focus only on one problem with it.
If you've only had sex with one other person, who's only had sex with one other person then your sexual experiences with that person define what sex is. If the sex is great, then you think sex is a beautiful positive thing you want your children to discover and explore. If the sex is bad then sex is a disgusting, horrible thing that you want to protect your children from. Hold onto this thought and keep in mind who decides arranged marriages.
Ok, the sex is great, great. But if the sex is bad, which is quite likely because while sex does come naturally, great sex requires practice, learning, dedication and knowledge... which is hard to get if no one talks or writes books about it (I'm so glad to live in a country full of magazines and books about sex, even though we don't often talk about it openly, because this means even two virgin lovers can potentially have great sex too) then we have a problem... but the marriage is fine.
Firstly, why is the marriage fine? Well, they're ignorant to how much better their sex life could be so they don't have any sexual problems in their marriage to worry about. So that's one less pressure for a marriage to end up in divorce.
Secondly, why is this a problem? People who think sex is bad tend to project that viewpoint into every aspect of their lives. I'm talking about people we all know: those who hate/despise sex workers, sluts, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals, people who enjoy or are relaxed their sexuality etc...
These people are everywhere: doctors, teachers, priests, friends, etc...
These people are ignorant about sex, and sure, part of sex is uncomfortable, bad and harmful... but if it didn't have any good aspects we wouldn't care about it so much either. These people only know a small part about sex but the danger here is that because people don't talk about sex in detail there is a perception that this is all there is to know. Therefore these people feel that they actually know all there is to know about sex. That reassurance can give them the confidence to say and do harmful things to many people... not because they are mean people, but because they sincerely think they are helping them.
Ignorance is what enables good people to do and say bad things.
If you don't want to hurt someone, then you need to get informed.
But the death of ignorance comes at a price, just like in my earlier post describing my personal lost of religious faith.
If you're married to the only sexual partner you've ever had... and you somehow get a hint that something else is happening in the world of sex... maybe you heard the neighbours fucking next door. Maybe you heard to girls gossiping at the bus stop about penises. Maybe you heard a boy describing to his friends what happens when his girlfriend orgasms. Maybe your partner has had sex with someone else. Maybe you just have an intuitive feeling... what if there is more to sex than this?
Then each night, you might lie awake for awhile after sex and wonder. Is this all? Am I lucky? Am I even satified? Am I miserable because I'm not fully reaching climax? Is it normal the way I feel when I'm inside/penetrating them? Am I moody because I don't enjoy sex?
Such anxiety can be dealt with one of two ways:
1. Pathologically: fear, loathing, disgust, misery and hatred.
2. Growth: curiousity, exploration, courage to challenge the habits and the personal dogma of ones sexuality.
As an atheist, I feel that am committed to option 2. I will only live once and I will not let myself spend it hating myself and my fellow human beings. Why hate someone for simply being who they are? As if they had a choice in the matter!
It is now time to go back to why it was so apt for my friend to be wished luck.
When one makes a decision where one knows the situation, one does not ask for luck.
But when one is embarking on a dangerous and uncertain journey that one is helpless to influence the outcome of then one is left with nothing they can do but to wish, pray and hope for good luck.
This is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
It is so simple. Ignorance is just intellectual laziness. If you take a stand on a topic or a decision without first considering all of the other possibilities and alternative within reach. Then you deserve the consequences of your decision... and even if you somehow stumble blindly onto a good fortune... do you honestly deserve to take the credit for something you didn't work for?
She asked me to wish her luck... I couldn't think of a better way to describe the situation.
See this is where sexually knowledgeable and sexually ignorant cultures diverge.
A sexually ignorant culture prefers arranged marriages and people never talking about sex. Why? Because if you don't know anything about boys/girls and having sexual relationships with them then making a choice is very scary - thus having that choice made for you is something of a relief... especially since the people making the decision are sexually experienced (aka the parents). The next 'advantage' is that if one only has one sexual partner and one type of sexual experience then one will assume that that's all sex is. So when people talk about sex non-descriptively, that's what one will imagine it to be.
But what if you hear friends talking about their sex lives and they seem more interesting and exciting than your own? Once knowledge of other people's sex lives becomes known to you the tendancy is that one will start to compare ones sex life to theirs and start to wonder, "Do I have the best sex life I could have?"
How does a sexually ignorant culture deal with this? Demanding better sex? Demanding the right to explore their sexuality? Demanding to know what this sex thing is all about?
No. They simply don't talk about it. That's why we don't talk about sex with our friends over dinner. Because if we lose the protective shield of our ignorance about sex then we are going to be assaulted by our insecurities. We are going to start asking ourselves uncomfortable questions like:
I am a good lover?
Is my partner a good lover?
Is our sex life the best it could be?
Would I enjoy sex more with that person than my spouse?
People say that arranged marriages are more successful because they don't have as high a divorce rate.
I am aware that this is a ridiculous statement for many reasons but just for now I'm going to ignore most of them and focus only on one problem with it.
If you've only had sex with one other person, who's only had sex with one other person then your sexual experiences with that person define what sex is. If the sex is great, then you think sex is a beautiful positive thing you want your children to discover and explore. If the sex is bad then sex is a disgusting, horrible thing that you want to protect your children from. Hold onto this thought and keep in mind who decides arranged marriages.
Ok, the sex is great, great. But if the sex is bad, which is quite likely because while sex does come naturally, great sex requires practice, learning, dedication and knowledge... which is hard to get if no one talks or writes books about it (I'm so glad to live in a country full of magazines and books about sex, even though we don't often talk about it openly, because this means even two virgin lovers can potentially have great sex too) then we have a problem... but the marriage is fine.
Firstly, why is the marriage fine? Well, they're ignorant to how much better their sex life could be so they don't have any sexual problems in their marriage to worry about. So that's one less pressure for a marriage to end up in divorce.
Secondly, why is this a problem? People who think sex is bad tend to project that viewpoint into every aspect of their lives. I'm talking about people we all know: those who hate/despise sex workers, sluts, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals, people who enjoy or are relaxed their sexuality etc...
These people are everywhere: doctors, teachers, priests, friends, etc...
These people are ignorant about sex, and sure, part of sex is uncomfortable, bad and harmful... but if it didn't have any good aspects we wouldn't care about it so much either. These people only know a small part about sex but the danger here is that because people don't talk about sex in detail there is a perception that this is all there is to know. Therefore these people feel that they actually know all there is to know about sex. That reassurance can give them the confidence to say and do harmful things to many people... not because they are mean people, but because they sincerely think they are helping them.
Ignorance is what enables good people to do and say bad things.
If you don't want to hurt someone, then you need to get informed.
But the death of ignorance comes at a price, just like in my earlier post describing my personal lost of religious faith.
If you're married to the only sexual partner you've ever had... and you somehow get a hint that something else is happening in the world of sex... maybe you heard the neighbours fucking next door. Maybe you heard to girls gossiping at the bus stop about penises. Maybe you heard a boy describing to his friends what happens when his girlfriend orgasms. Maybe your partner has had sex with someone else. Maybe you just have an intuitive feeling... what if there is more to sex than this?
Then each night, you might lie awake for awhile after sex and wonder. Is this all? Am I lucky? Am I even satified? Am I miserable because I'm not fully reaching climax? Is it normal the way I feel when I'm inside/penetrating them? Am I moody because I don't enjoy sex?
Such anxiety can be dealt with one of two ways:
1. Pathologically: fear, loathing, disgust, misery and hatred.
2. Growth: curiousity, exploration, courage to challenge the habits and the personal dogma of ones sexuality.
As an atheist, I feel that am committed to option 2. I will only live once and I will not let myself spend it hating myself and my fellow human beings. Why hate someone for simply being who they are? As if they had a choice in the matter!
It is now time to go back to why it was so apt for my friend to be wished luck.
When one makes a decision where one knows the situation, one does not ask for luck.
But when one is embarking on a dangerous and uncertain journey that one is helpless to influence the outcome of then one is left with nothing they can do but to wish, pray and hope for good luck.
This is the difference between ignorance and knowledge.
It is so simple. Ignorance is just intellectual laziness. If you take a stand on a topic or a decision without first considering all of the other possibilities and alternative within reach. Then you deserve the consequences of your decision... and even if you somehow stumble blindly onto a good fortune... do you honestly deserve to take the credit for something you didn't work for?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
