The External Self

The other day I was talking with a friend about something private. At one point I critiqued some of his actions, saying he was acting callous. His response was "I may act callous, but I'm not callous on the inside. That's what matters." If people can't see what he's really like on the inside, then they're badwrong. He can discard them.

It's a troubling thing to hear, especially because I realize I do it myself. One of my biggest fears is being an arrogant person. I obsess over being modest and not arrogant. I also think that if people do think I'm arrogant, then they're mistaken, because I work so hard to not be arrogant that I know I'm not. They're just seeing a face, an external part of me that doesn't reflect who I truly am.

The problem with thinking this way is that you're dropping a wall between how you think and how you act. Just because something is part of the external self does not mean it has no impact on you. It's still an external self. If you present yourself in a certain way, you can't say that it's not how you actually are. Even if it wasn't, you're acting in that form. That's going to bleed into your 'actual' self.

This is especially true since we are fallible people. Just because we think we are a certain way does not mean we are that way. There are aspects of us we are blind to, willfully or not. We have to listen to other people, and hope that they can see the things we can't.

So a question. If I think I'm not arrogant, but a lot of people say I act arrogant, am I arrogant or not?

Yes. Yes I am.

This sucks.