I had a cathartic conversation several years ago with a friend about self-awareness. To recap, we found consolation in each other’s belief that to be truly self-aware to is to be alone. It’s a very hollow feeling that’s as rewarding as it is at times discomforting and numb. Inherently ironic as that may be, it is a truth. Or at least that’s what I thought. Then, about a year ago, I reach the conclusion that as far as self-awareness goes, that in and of itself is no end point. There’s never and end point, self-discovery and understanding is an elusive and moving target. Best case scenario, you come to terms with the fact that you’ll never have what you’re after. Fuck. Sucks right? Life is a puzzle without borders and solving it is a foolish pursuit.
Then, I stumble upon an old podcast from one of my favorite neurotic Jewish comics (as if there’s another kind) Marc Maron. Piror to interviewing guests, Marc usually postmoretems his most recent emotional dilemma. In short, it explains perfectly to me why my brand of self-awareness, and maybe everyone else’s, tastes so bitter. Here’s the excerpt:
“Self awareness, once it becomes intellectualized, once you can actually say in conversation ‘Yeah my mom was like this, my dad was like this, I’m like this, this is my struggle, you know sometimes I do this because my mom did this, or I grew up with this or whatever’ that that pattern, that emotional dialogue actually insulates you from feeling the feelings around that shit. Like self-awareness can just be another shield of armor because then you can just say ‘Oh yeah that’s because of this’. ‘And what are you doing about that?’ ‘Well I don’t fucking know. But I know about it. I know I have it.’ Hopefully something will happen one day and shake you to your core and connect all of that self-awareness to actual feelings in your guts and force you to make a change. God damn it. I hate growing. I hate emotional upheaval. And I cannot stand knowing I’m fucked up in a deeper way than I might have imagined. That’s just the way life is.”
