The more we strive to learn a new skill or inculcate a personality trait, the harder it seems. The newfound awareness of the task at hand bears down on us. We become painfully conscious of our own limitations and ignorance – of the distance between us and the goal. Take writing, for example. The more I read, or the more attention I pay to words and grammar and style, the more horrible I feel about my own prose. It was more than 6 years ago that I decided that I’d start making a conscious effort into improving my writing, and after all these years I am as far being a good writer as I have ever been. Or so it would appear.
Is it just appearances? Could it be that our very awareness serves as a barrier to progress? Could it be that consciousness, instead of merely throwing light at the distance we need to cover, also creates it? I do not know, and I cannot tell.
It is an epistemological problem that could be found everywhere once you start looking for it.
“Don’t be self-conscious”, “Be yourself”, “Trust your instincts” are all commonly bandied about pieces of wisdom in the self-improvement sphere. But how do they work? By blinding ourselves to our own follies? Like an Ostrich burying its head in the sand? Ignorance might be bliss, but bliss is not what we are looking for.
Gaining a new skill requires a heightened sensitivity to the details, the subtleties and nuances embodied in the activity. I can testify: I am now excruciatingly aware of my glaring deficiencies in all the areas I’ve tried to improve over the past few years: writing, physical fitness, photography, dressing sense, public speaking, sense of humour, and so forth. Yet the more I try to fill in those deficiencies, the deeper they get, or worse, give rise to new ones. It’s like I am on a never-ending journey of becoming, where the more distance you cover, the farther the destination gets.
How can we just be, instead of always becoming?
07 January 2015