On Self-Awareness

There seems to be a paradox somewhere within my fundamental core of being that creates and endless loop I keep getting myself stuck in.

As a child, you simply do what you want, for the most part, you’re selfish, not evil, and perhaps you will follow rules or do good things, but more for the potential punishment or reward than actual good faith.

Slowly however you are taught that everyone else is a person, and so are you, and its important to recognise and analyse your actions to make sure they aren’t doing harm to those around you. This is the base tenet of “Self-Awareness”.

Slowly you gain this awareness of further aspects of yourself, you start to realise the reasons you do things, and how silly they are, and start to re-evaluate your actions and move forward a different, more sensible person. This is a very satisfying process, as you come out the end feeling very much like you are a more mature person than you went in.

But eventually it becomes harder and harder to reach this, the epiphanies regarding your own actions come further and further apart and you start to fear that maybe you’re not just reaching “maximum maturity”, but rather just becoming less self-aware, and so you start analysing yourself.

Why are you doing this, why are you doing that, that’s silly. Then you realise the act of judging every action is silly, life is meant to be enjoyed, then you realise simplifying life to such a degree is silly, you need a more mature outlook, then you realise constantly striving more “maturity” is actually a very immature thing to do, and around and around it goes, it begins to seem like it never ends, everything you do is stupid, everything you do is silly, your base fundamentals are naive and overly simplistic, regardless of how much you try and change that to escape this.

Earlier today I wrote something, call it a poem maybe. It wasn’t good, but even if it was, the fundamental concept behind it seems childish. To write such a dramatic, overly metaphorical piece seems almost arrogant, as though I think myself so smart and artistic to have transcended normal communication. It’s the kind of thing you can see a cliche “emo” 14 year old do as she shouts at her mum to fuck off. Me of two years ago would have cringed.

But despite feeling all that, I wrote it. Perhaps finally I have gotten over my constant self judgement on constantly seeming perfectly self-aware on everything I do, but more likely I am simply at the stage of the cycle at which I conclude that self-awareness is dumb, I should just do what feels right, what feels good, so long as it isn’t hurting those around me. Perhaps within a few months I will look back and cringe, god what an idiot I was, did I really think that was clever?

Perhaps not, either way, the constant striving towards a seemingly unattainable goal of being constantly, 100% self aware seems foolish, not only because its impossible, but also because even if it wasn’t, is the end goal even something that I want?