Human beings have seen the value of self-reflection for a very long time. Nearly three millennia ago Siddharta Gautama noted that “it’s better to conquer oneself than a thousand men in battle”, as part of his enquiry into the human condition that came to be known as Buddhism. Similarly, Socrates spent his days in Classical Athens exhorting the city’s folk to ‘know themselves’. He even declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living”.
The unexamined life
The ability to self-reflect, along with the ability to look far into the past and into the future, is a key mental capacity that sets us apart from our animal cousins. We can slice-up time and space and organise ourselves in a variety of complex ways. Crucially, we can also become aware of ourselves within such arrangements. Indeed, our administratively complex, large-scale modern societies are a testament to this. They rely on our ability to reflect and self-reflect to function. And, we can go further – modern society is such that we have no choice but to self-reflect. Every decision we make slots into, and is impacted by, a vast administratively complex system with many layers and many participants. And, we must regularly think about our choices and actions in relation to these.
Weirdly then, there’s a case to be made that so much thinking and self-reflection is required in modernity that we are overwhelmed by it. Rather than the pitfalls of the unexamined life, what we have today is the anxiety of an overexamined existence. We need to constantly weigh-up our actions and second guess how others will view us within complex socio-economic structures. This has given much of modern life a neurotic quality, such that it might make even Socrates pause. Have we got too much self-reflection or not enough of it? Do we need to double down, or somehow cut back?
Complex societies require more self-reflection
To really go into this question, we must first understand how human life was not always like this. The natural contrast to our administratively complex, large-scale societies is a small society of intimates. One where everyone knows each other and where the way of life doesn’t change much from year to year. Life in such a setting doesn’t require the same level of self-reflection that we do. When discussing this question with veteran anthropologist, Daniel Everett, who lived with the Amazonian Pirahã hunter-gatherers for 8 years, he described to me how a Pirahã doesn’t need to consider such questions as, “should I be a hunter? Am I a good hunter?” They are all hunters and expected to be (good) hunters. There’s nothing to self-reflect and consider — that’s just their way of life.
Pirahãs don’t need to reflect on life in the way that we need to simply to function in our large anonymous societies. We must choose careers, figure out where to study and live, whom to start a family with, what hobbies to pursue, how to make time for these hobbies, where to go on holiday, if a holiday can be afforded – etc. etc. We must also consider the various implications that these choices bring. And, the endless noise of our social-media, information age doesn’t make any of this easier. What’s more, we are also the victims of our own success. Humankind’s technological and material achievements have given us so many choices that were unavailable to our ancestors. Yet, choice is a double-edged sword. More choice also means more to worry about.
Do we actually need less self-reflection?
One might say that there’s nothing special about all this, it’s ‘just life’ in modernity. Yet our lives have vastly different psychological implications and requirements than in a small society of intimates. Of course, much of modern life becomes second-nature through exposure from a young age. In the same way that Pirahãs can hunt and navigate the Amazon, we are able to navigate our large urban environments.
What’s interesting is that the baseline level of self-reflection we require is extraordinarily high. It’s probably the highest it has ever been since humans first discovered agriculture and began creating large settlements. Society is more complex – technologically, socially, economically, politically – than it has ever been. So, a bit like numeracy and literacy skills, there is now a minimum level of self-reflection required simply to survive the ordinary everyday.
People often talk about the need for more self-awareness and self-reflection. Perhaps some can benefit from a bit more of this. Yet, overwhelmingly there’s a case to be made for too much self-reflection happening in modern life. There’s so much noise with so many contradictory messages that it’s easy to become neurotically self-conscious about ourselves, about existence itself. The high level of self-reflection needed for everyday life has had the unintended, but predictable, effect of creating self-doubt. Because at a fundamental level, a complex noisy world with lots of choice can easily create doubt about what we ought to be doing. Whatever we choose, a nagging question may remain – “is it good enough? Am I good enough? “
From self-reflection to self-doubt
The overexamined life can thus destabilise our very experience of being. Because we are constantly evaluating how we show-up in multi-layered social structures, our sense of who we are may start to exist only as an idea – a self-image that we try to manage and project. We might cling to this nebulous self-image, constantly and anxiously moulding it, while forgetting the very direct experience of being that is the fundamental ground of existence. A reflected self-image is not reality, but this is what our constantly thinking modern minds can make us believe.
Rather than prioritising the direct experience of a thing, we may filter this experience through the self-reflective lens of how we will be viewed because we do that thing. Rather than simply wanting to have a tasty meal at a cosy restaurant (very direct experience), one might start to consider the status implications of eating there (self-reflective image building). Similarly, entire careers and lives may get built around the need to demonstrate status.
The self-reflective, evaluating mind, doubts the inherent validity of existence, and thus needs to confirm it through the achievement of some external result, be it accolades or wealth. So, for example, even when financial security is not a concern, one may torment themselves doing uninspiring work to fulfil some idea of being a ‘success’, while ignoring the immense sterility of the day-to-day experience, such that it may even lead to burnout.
Old tendencies in a new world
The human mind has likely always had the tendency to fall into this trap, being a feature of our complex mental capacities. What is different today is the extent to which it ensnares us. The wickedness of self-reflection arises because there is so much abstract thinking and reflecting going on in modernity that it has become a slippery slope. One that produces self-doubt by trapping us in the mental frameworks we use to navigate the modern world. We must certainly create models for understanding the world and our actions within it, for how will we manage otherwise?!
Yet, there is a line between such self-reflection and clinging to the ‘outputs’ it produces as ultimate truths. Ultimate truths that relate to ‘the self’ as an object that must be refined and improved. Situational problem solving is not the same as clinging to an abstract idea of who “I” should be. Yet, as we have been discussing, too much self-reflection can easily lead to this error if we are not careful.
Drowning in mental abstractions
We have no choice but to self-reflect, we need it to function in modern society. We also cannot turn back time and revert to being hunter-gatherers. What we can do is become aware of how self-reflection can drown us in mental abstractions – fixating us on building a particular self-image for all sorts of random and convoluted reasons that have to do with our life experiences from day one.
We raised the question of doubling down or cutting back on self-reflection at the beginning. An investigation into the nature of your self-image is an area where rigorous self-reflection can help. For example, where do your ideas of success and achievement come from – is it parental input, schooling, pop culture, etc.? Whose approval are you trying to gain and why? What will such approval really give you? Is this all a bid for happiness in the future, for feeling a sense of self-worth? Such an enquiry may certainly help you to know thyself better, to understand how who- you-are has been shaped by a multitude of, often contradictory, influences that tend to live outside of your conscious attention.
Self-reflection devalues direct experience
The problem then is not self-reflection per se, but that self-reflection is divorced from direct experience. This is not surprising because the complexity and noise of modernity keeps us constantly looking ahead, evaluating, judging. There are so many abstract moving pieces we have to consider just to catch a train or secure employment.
What is needed then is not less self-reflection, but an opening up to unfiltered direct experience — direct experience that gives meaning to self-reflection. Direct experience that involves doing things, whatever these may be – for their own sake – rather than for any external rewards. For, if we only do things for whatever it will give us in the future, status or otherwise, it becomes like the promise that is never kept, the tomorrow that never comes. And, not doing things for the direct experience is very much linked to the constant desire, conscious or unconscious, to manage a self-image. We may become so pre-occupied with moulding an elusive idea of ‘self’ that we forget the fundamental ground of felt-experience (body and mind) that’s existence itself.
Simplicity is a consequence not a cause
Untethered from direct experience, the overexamined life is like a castle in the air, built on nothing but mental abstractions and future focused striving, where we are running faster and faster, but never arriving. We may have built a world of material abundance, but we only feel less and less at home in it, unable to enjoy the fruits of our labour. We may surround ourselves with all sorts of technological and urban complexity only to feel lost within it all. The game then is the following. We must self-reflect and use mental abstractions to function and solve the unique challenges of our time. However, we must do so without drowning in endless self-reflective thought and self-doubt. The modern mind is much like a sharp knife that has to be used with skill and care.
Simplifying your life to cut through the noise often comes up as a cure that sounds very sensible. The truth however is that finding clarity of mind precedes a simple lifestyle, not the other way around. For, even the idea of simplicity can be hijacked by the anxious mind as something to ‘get right’. All manner of doubts may arise here; “Have I simplified enough? What areas have I missed?”, such that we end up complexifying simplicity!
It starts with recognition
On the other hand, as soon as you recognise the mind’s tendency to fall into endless self-reflection about what you should do and whom you should be, you give yourself the opportunity to break free. The opportunity to embrace direct everyday experience, whether that is having a coffee, taking a walk or pursuing your deepest interests.
Embracing direct experience sounds very trivial, and in many ways it is, but only if the mind is free from endless self-reflection about how a self-image can be improved. It’s only possible if the mind is free from constant future-focused striving that has become the psychological norm of our time. If self-reflection is of any value, it is only to those who are already able to experience things for their own sake.
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Harsha is a 1:1 coach and independent thinker based in London. He empowers people to find more clarity, confidence and focus in their lives — to cut through the noise, in a world so full of it. Harsha’s new book, Machine Ego: Tragedy of the Modern Mind, is now available in paperback and Kindle through Amazon.
Wow. Your words are a so spot on always. They translate this mushy thoughts of mine into clear sighted statements ! Thank you
Merci Rémy. Glad you found it useful!