Yesterday I published an essay on how being around other people forces me to tell a story about myself that I don't like.
I, as a normal human being (more or less) cannot be easily described in a few words or sentences.
However, that is what we, as normal human beings, try to do when we're around others. We want to understand the world, we want it to be predictable and consistent. We apply these same demands to the people in our life despite the fact that people are much less understandable or predictable than the rest of the world. We want our friends (and enemies) to abide by a simple consistent story. Like "Janice is fit" or "Drew is lazy" or at it's most nuanced, "Jeff really likes taking trips to the beach"
Yesterday, when I wrote the aforementioned article I was focused on how being around others forces me to simplify my story and how that was bad. However, a few hours after writing and publishing it I realized that actually, what I don't like about spending too much time around others is not the simplification of my story but rather the premature communication of it. I think simplifying my story can actually be good. Of course, a simple 3 sentence story can't communicate everything about me, but it doesn't need to. A simple story, if it feels authentic, can provide direction and meaning without tricking me into doing things I don't like.
The "authentic" part there is pretty key. When I'm forced to tell a story about myself prematurely, no matter how nuanced, it often won't feel authentic.
I am constantly encountering new situations and responding in new and unexpected ways. I try to study my feelings and behaviors with curiosity and from them glean an understanding of myself that is constantly evolving.
Last year I went through an exercise where I tried to distill my personality down to 3 statements. I ended up at 4, viewable on www.freedavid.co. This process took me 3.5 months of nearly daily work. I went through hundreds of versions, with feedback from people close to me and finally arrived at 25 words that feel both authentic and descriptive.
Now, what would have really sucked is if I had ended that process early. If I had been forced to commit to 4 statements before I was ready, I think it would have been worse than not doing that exercise at all. Whatever story I would have told would have become reality, whether I liked it or not. If I tell a story that feels inauthentic it means I'll live in a way that feels inauthentic.
I think this is what happens when I'm around friends too much. When I spend a lot of time around other people, both them and I will observe my actions together. We'll both be curious about why I'm doing certain things. My own curiosity will manifest through reflection— patient consideration of what my actions mean. My friend’s curiosity will, naturally, manifest through questions. They'll want to understand right then and there. Ideally I'd feel comfortable saying "I don't yet know why I do this". But nobody wants to be inconsistent. Nobody wants to admit they don't know themselves. So instead I just say whatever answer pops into my head. Hopefully, that premature response won't stick. Hopefully, after I reflect more I can come up with a more authentic answer, and communicate that to my friend. But too often this premature answer becomes my reality before I'm able to really process and produce an authentic one.
This article itself is a good example of this phenomenon. Last night, I gave myself a deadline: I had to publish before 9PM. I had already worked on the essay for two days. So I put it out before it felt totally authentic. Fortunately, I took a second look a few hours later and realized that the explanation I gave with so much certainty didn't actually make sense to me. I reflected and realized there was a better explanation, now expressed in this article.
It can be harder to catch these premature stories in real life, when I don’t get enough time alone. A story I tell once, prematurely, will get reflected back at me over and over again. It might be told by myself and my friends for weeks or months before I get around to updating it. At that point it's embarrassing and confusing to correct the story. Imagine if my article from yesterday went viral and 1m people read it. It would be pretty hard for me to be confident in the correction I'm writing now.
With this in mind I'm realizing that this problem is more under my control than I previously thought. I don't have to necessarily avoid living with others (though there are other good reasons for that, mentioned in yesterday's essay). But I do need space to reflect, to tell my own story. I also need to be comfortable with saying "I don't know why I do this. I don't know who I am at this moment" I need to avoid telling premature stories about myself and I need to be working to continuously update the stories I do tell. And, of course, I need to empower others to do the same, because I'm definitely, although unintentionally, creating this same situation for others.
What do you think? Which article resonates more with you, yesterday’s or today’s?
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