the existentialism of mindfulness
my self-conceptual journey has been a chaotic one. starting last year, i've been trying to be who i am; moreover, trying to find who i am. throughout my childhood, i've based my core beliefs and goals on a defined set of attributes upon which i've formed my personality. back then, i thought this would be enough. if i stuck to these core principles and outlooks then i would be true to myself. in reality, personality runs much deeper than this.
i first started contemplating this when, after covid and subsequent hours a day spent on tik tok and other social media platforms for over a year, i noticed my friends and i acting the same way. not because we spent time together, but because of the personality traits made "popular" on tik tok and instagram. this almost immediately catapulted me down a spiral of trying to figure out who i was outside of social media's sphere of influence.
as a person, i'm very hesitant towards and aware of society and its' all-consuming nature. how it seeps into our opinions and affects how we view certain things. how we presume we have one idea, but upon hearing the opinion of the masses we immediately change our entire belief system. this stretches many aspects of life, from fashion to things as vital as laws and ethical justifications.
while trying to figure out who i am, i thought: "why don't i just do whatever the fuck i want to do and say whatever the fuck i want to say". i started to incorporate the idea of optimistic nihilism into my life and thought that if i acted as if nothing mattered, then the way i behaved would surely be authentically me. and oh baby, if only it were that easy. because at first look, even when one thinks they're doing this, there's a good chance they're still doing what they "want to do" in the context of other people and society's judgmental eyes. this is at least true to me, a people pleaser, in how i believed i was doing what i wanted to do when in actuality i was acting in a way that was best received by others. studying psychology has only cemented this retrospection, as i've been learning that our sense of self is formed by unconscious feedback received by the people we interact with. this led to me outwardly posing opinions i didn't truly believe in and saying things i didn't actually mean. this was made clear in an interaction i had the other day, where a friend presented one opinion to which i agreed, and upon my agreement, he reminded me that earlier i had said the exact opposite. later that night, i traced the steps of the opinion i had first stated and discerned that it was one i never even believed. this exchange made me question the nature of the ways i behave and the things i say in social interactions.
following this, i've become determined to be more mindful, and instead of defining who i am with concrete characteristics, simply take the time to respond according to what i actually think. however, when throughout your life you've formed opinions in light of others, it can be extremely difficult to think of yourself outside of society's grasp. this may present one with an existential conflict, the dreaded question of "who am i, really?"
in my educational track, we have to take a history of psychology class where we learn about the philosophers and their philosophies that lead to what we now know as modern-day behavioral and cognitive psychology. descartes is a dominant figure in this, and his axiom "i think, therefore i am" has never been more true to me than it is now. this axiom has more history behind it than i'm able to cover in this essay, so i'll let britannica summarize it: "because even if an all-powerful demon were to try to deceive him into thinking that he exists when he does not, he would have to exist in order for the demon to deceive him." and i think this applies almost exactly to the impact of society on our self-concept. in this case, society is the demon "tricking" you into thinking a certain thing, but the mere fact that you can think proves that you are your own entity, capable of existing out of its range of influence.
now, to apply this axiom directly: if you give yourself time to think (outside of the range of society, which i acknowledge is more complicated than simply stepping out of its reach), then you give yourself time to form your own ideas on the situations you find yourself in. instead of being a perception -> response robot, responding the way that you've learned is best received by other people, you can think: "how do i actually feel about this? how do i think is actually the best way of handling this?" and that is how you can begin to handle things in ways that best suit you, as a unique entity.
going a step further with this, i propose the buddhist truth of the ever-changing self, anatta. this belief states that we humans don't possess a non-changing soul, and the personality that we think is solid, we only cling to out of the fear of change. clinging to this assumed personality is what begins our spiral away from our actual beliefs, whether they're conscious or unconscious.
to clarify, i'll provide an example: say you've been raised to believe that stealing is wrong. this is what your parents have taught you, and what you've grown to believe in yourself. now, after years of believing this, it's now developed into a core ethical principle. this is, until you find yourself in an ethical dilemma. in a store, you catch someone stealing food, and they explain to you that their family is starving and they have no money for a meal. this leaves you feeling a cognitive dissonance. you've been raised with the idea that this is wrong, but you still maintain your empathy for this person. a person who was afraid of changing their personality would go down the route of judging this person, or even more extreme and reporting them. a person aware of the ever-changing soul would lean on their empathy and let them go, changing their belief to now accommodate situations such as these, or even reframing their principle altogether.
of course, this is only one situation among the many that we encounter daily. but, this ideology can transfer to any situation in which one may find themselves needing to reevaluate themselves or their attitude.
so, after the many months of introspection i've oh so neatly laid out in this short essay, i've come to a (still very open-to-adaptation) conclusion that to be true to yourself outside of the influence of others, it is best to employ all of the methods i mentioned. optimistic nihilism, the axiom of "i think, therefore i am", and the buddhist belief of anatta, all together. i've found that adopting these philosophies/ideas in isolation has led to confusion and feeling like a knotted ball of yarn that just gets more knotted as you try to untangle it. however, that's not to say that i'm untangled, in the slightest. the journey to self-discovery is lifelong and requires thought and consideration, but it's worth it.
i've decided to write an essay on this because i've been seeing that many people are confused with who they are and who they want to be, especially on social media. i hope this essay provides some comfort that it's okay, and your journey is in the hands of the wind now. let it carry you.
disclaimer: i am in no way deeming myself an all-knowing figure. this is only what i've concluded from my own research and contemplation.
okay, maybe by the end of this essay you feel a bit of information overload, especially if you've never considered these things before. so, i'll wrap it up in a nice little bow.
society is an all-consuming beast who, to reach who we are, we need to escape.
utilizing optimistic nihilism to achieve an accurate self-concept is only useful when utilizing it in a mindful way.
descartes' axiom "i think, therefore i am" is applicable even now in the perspective of society, and to be yourself you have to think before you speak.
the buddhist truth of anatta frees you from gripping onto your self-assumed personality.
