The Body In Quarantine, The Mind in Motion

Self-awareness is dead. Long live self-awareness.

When I first received the link to a virtual session with my therapist, my reaction could generously be described as apathetic. In the weeks leading up to quarantine, we had fallen into a routine. I recapped, in much detail, the events of the previous two weeks, struggling to squeeze as much into 50 minutes as I could. My perspective: a mile high and an inch deep. My therapist (who I’ve asked to interrupt me when she senses that I’m teetering on the edge of a diatribe) asking pertinent questions that may lead to deeper insight, only for me to answer curtly and move on. Knowing that I would be going through this routine from my own home, a place of comfort, led me to believe that facing uncomfortable truths would be much less likely. Initially, I was proven correct. The first session felt clunky, awkward, and slow. For the first time, I looked at the clock and was surprised — not by the lack of time remaining, but the surplus of it.

However, as I remained quarantined in my home, the lack of variety in my life led to an interesting change in my relationship with my therapist. Being that I didn’t have much to recap since every day was growing more and more similar, the things we discussed were able to exist fully. Moods, feelings, and actions were not just observed, but explored. As the other 335 hours of my life grew more dull, the 60 minutes I spent with my therapist unfolded with color.

As we discussed some of the most frequent interactions in my life (partner, family, coworkers, friends) I started to identify a trait that the people I value most had in common. The more I explored this trait, it seemed that those who possessed it in great quantities were the people whom I had the most respect, admiration, and love for. Those who lacked it, I viewed as ignorant, oblivious, and even unintelligent. Ever-searching for the secret code to happiness, I thought I stumbled upon the rubric by which my life would be defined: self-awareness.

The philosophy was simple: surround yourself with those who are most self-aware and distance yourself from those lacking self-awareness. All the while, practice introspection to ensure that you’re counted among the self-aware. Follow these three simple steps and look forward to a life filled with happiness and meaning.

Like any good philosopher though, the more I thought about it, the more holes began to appear. The largest being what I consider to be the paradox of self-awareness. In short: self-awareness cannot be measured by anyone other than the self. To deem someone else unaware of themself is to assume that you possess more knowledge of their “self” than they do.

However, when we look at any group of like individuals, we can see differences in self-awareness. Therefore, we know levels of awareness vary across people, but how can we quantify and compare them?

Imagine approaching someone you are close with and telling them, “I don’t think you’re very self-aware.” Who among us is going to admit that they lack self-awareness? We all have a fundamental belief that we are aware of our feelings, motivations, and character. Further, the person who admits “I am not self-aware” is likely reaching a level of awareness greater than those around them, practicing Socratic wisdom at its most basic level.

Empirically, there are certain humans who are more self-aware than others. Logically, there seems to be no infallible way of proving this.

In the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philsophy’s entry on “Self-Knowledge,” there are four main differences between knowledge of the self and knowledge in other domains.

1. Self-knowledge is especially secure, epistemically.

2. Self-knowledge is (sometimes) acquired by use of an exclusively first-personal method.

3. Self-knowledge is special because of the distinctive agential relation one bears to one’s own mental states.

4. One’s pronouncements about one’s own mental states carry a special authority or presumption of truth.

The first belief assumes that one is near-infallible about one’s own mental state. The researches cite Descartes’ cogito argument “I think, therefore, I am.” Meaning, as one observes and forms thoughts about themselves, there is no power that can disprove they are thinking about themselves, therefore they exist. The other thing that makes self-knowledge secure is the method by which we acquire it, which leads to the second belief.

Self-knowledge is gained in one of two ways. The first, mentioned above, is introspection. That involves looking inward at one’s thoughts, feelings, and beliefs to understand more about oneself. The second, is transparency, the practice of observing the world through one’s own mental state to understand what state of the world it represents. In an act of self-awareness, I will admit that the transparency method seems to exist outside the grasp of my mind. For my own purposes, I will refer to introspection as the method for attaining self-awareness moving forward.

The third belief cites the power of self-awareness in relation to one’s self. When you are thirsty, you can observe the affects of that feeling. A dry mouth, a headache, dehydration. This is a feeling. However, feelings or beliefs that one arrives upon on the basis of reason hold a greater significance. My feeling of thirst is my own, but I understood it through observation. My feeling that all humans are created equal involved reason, which gives it a principal of agency that feelings like thirst lack.

The final belief is the one that leads to the paradox of self-awareness. There is a presumption that one’s belief about oneself is authoritative. If I were to state: “I believe that all humans deserve a chance at happiness,” one could not reply with “No, you don’t.” It is simply assumed that I am the authority on my own belief system.

In this modern political climate, self-awareness is seemingly absent. Many of the most vocal political keyboard warriors have abandoned their identity and pledged themselves blindly allegiant to radical leaders. Without a sense of self, their worth is tied to the outcomes of elections and court rulings. And when things don’t go their way, they will create lies and conspiracies to explain it away.

Further, the erosion of the self has eliminated the distinction between opinion and fact. An opinion is something a person holds, a fact remains regardless of its speaker. Those who abandon self-awareness also have entered a realm where all facts are now debated as opinion, forever preventing anyone to disprove them. As the spread of misinformation picks up speed and the emotional gap continues to grow between people, the death of self-awareness is inevitable.

In my final act of self-awareness, I will admit that I don’t know how to prevent this. I can, however, give you my approach. Separate your identity from your belief system, find new perspective, admit your faults. Most importantly: choose empathy over apathy.