Fahckmylife's Blog
Crap adult, OK human.

Being self-aware sounds like it’d be awesome when you say it out loud. You’d think that recognising things in your head, behavioural patterns and your own tics and motivations with a highly articulate inner monologue would be the ideal way to live and sort out your life… But I’ve been thinking about it….

And meh….

I often wonder what it would be like to plough through life like a belligerent pig blissfully unaware of my motivations and the effects of my actions on other people. To just burst through everything to get what I want and never establish connections between cause and effect, reality and fantasy and I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt entitled to something that I wasn’t. It must be bliss, although perhaps somewhat confusing when things don’t go your way, to just only have to think about the immediate things that you think you need. It must be liberating to free yourself from the shackles of empathy, sympathy and selflessness and never question why you’re such an asshole. Then again, if you have no self-awareness I’d hazard a guess and say that the majority of your friendships are superficial and you’ve pissed lots of people off. Thing is because you might actually be verging on delusion you won’t doubt yourself, and as we all know self-doubt translates as lack of confidence which translates as weak.

A little over a year ago I went to a psychiatrist. What I found out from this whole experience was not what I had expected. He tried to make me meditate (heh), have confidence in the fact that other people have treated me badly but that it isn’t any indication of my worth and take magic medicine. These were all expected. The thing that I took from everything was that I am self- aware… reinforced by the fact that the doctor actually said the sentence ‘you are actually ridiculously self- aware’ and then asked me if he could use some of my thoughts to apply to his own life (I was worried that he was making all these notes because I was a case study of something unusual – not the case).  Anyway I didn’t go for long because I’m a cocky bitch and thought I had gleaned everything from it that I could.

So I thought about how I’m self-aware and traced my behavioural patterns and thought about how I weighed up situations, look at options and what key things help me make my decisions. I mean, I know exactly what I want, or more to the point what I don’t want (much bigger list) and constantly think about how what I do has an impact on others. Thing is, that even recognising these doesn’t mean you can change them. Some things are force of habit and to detach yourself from stupid things you’ve been doing your whole life is no easy task. Also the constant weighing up of situations makes me wary and possibly come across as doubting myself when I’m simply trying to make the best choice for everyone that I can.

I considered the whole self-awareness thing as well in terms of language. In my experience clever people will always be a bit more troubled or unhappy. The fact that you can articulate what you want and what you need or even your feelings (purely in your head) is even more frustrating when they are unachievable. You know exactly what you want, you have an idea of how to get it, you know why you want it but whether you can actually do it is completely another thing. The fact that you can articulate all these things only compounds the feelings of failure should you even get very far. Language seems to restrict your thoughts in the sense that you are no longer operating in a purely instinctual short term – which depending on your outlook is a good or a bad thing. I mean, I’d love to be an accidental prick and still think I was great. I’d love not have to consider other people, or factors and could make more impulsive (only when sober) faster decisions rather than ponder things, letting them percolate in my brain and causing some kind of weird decision paralysis. And in the long run, no matter what you do, no matter how nice you try to be you’re still going to be piss people off.

So are you aware or not? Here’s a list of things that blissfully unaware people do.

1. Say insulting things by accident.
2. Demand and/or boss people.
3. Not understand the concept of personal space.
4. Not understand the needs or wants of others.
5. Have a sense of entitlement
6. Spoilt brat syndrome
7. Completely unaware when people do nice things for them – unappreciative and probably rude.
8. Rude and bad mannered
9. Possibly angry a lot, based on poor decision making, based on selfishness and may start friction.
10. They don’t choose their battles – either by accident or on purpose they have lots of battles.

So again I wonder whether I’d be better off switching off my brain and not bothering with social etiquette and just look after myself, a completely impulsive arsehole or whether I’m better off using the grey matter that I have in setting unattainable goals that will make me miserable?