first impressions

May 5, 2024

How Many Selves Do You Have?

Do you know Stan? You might think you do, but how much of Stan’s life and personality are you aware of? Does having lunch with him three times yearly reveal all there is to know? Or is he a Zoom buddy who doesn’t exist for you below the belt?

Have you seen the fine fellow angry, sad, lonely, or excited? How often have you witnessed his behavior in the moment he succeeds or fails?

Turn the questions around. What portion of your temperament and dark side is your friend cognizant of?

Indeed, how much do you understand yourself?

Léon Bloy wrote:

There is no human being on earth who is capable of declaring who he is. No one knows what he has come to this world to do, to what his acts, feelings, ideas correspond, or what his real name is, his imperishable Name in the registry of light. (L’Ame de Napoleon, 1912).

We all know ourselves from the inside and cannot experience what others take in from their perspective outside of us. Each of us has access to emotion, pain, anxiety, happiness, lust, dreams, judgment, and many other elements unavailable to those who see and hear us.

When we talk about knowing the full range of our nature, our internal assessment—accurate or not— dominates our thoughts and evaluations.

Even so, this source of awareness is incomplete.

Protective psychological defense mechanisms hide facets of our personalities from consciousness. Onlookers may recognize signs of depression in us before we do. A lack of energy, tone of voice, facial expression, and sensitivity are aspects of what we offer in an unhappy state, even if we don’t know it.

Men and women deny, rationalize, and repress some of what is inside while projecting their troubles onto outsiders.

Strangers or acquaintances judge us based on first impressions, an up or down day, appearance, or how we are described on social media. Their beliefs about political affiliations or sexual preferences can color, enlarge, shade, or diminish insights when we size up another. Nationality, tone of voice, wit, and religion fuel instantaneous affections, disappointments, or indifference.

Since 21st-century technology allows rapid long-distance communication, humans are vulnerable to extreme misrepresentation. Smaller communities and repeated face-to-face interaction are less available today to inform others of our true nature—and we of theirs.

Thus, we have become the potential objects of second-hand opinions of the most unfavorable type. Moreover, what we infer when speaking to someone on a screen doesn’t always weigh the unusual quality of this kind of familiarity, full of pixelated strangers and computer friends.

That vulnerability extends to what is said about us by those who have some experience of who we are or claim to possess unique insight without evidence. Their notions play on rumors, fake news, and the ability to hide themselves while vilifying the object of their contempt.

The dangers of opening our souls to acquaintances are exacerbated when they appear sunny, happy, untroubled, and good-natured. The less secure find interactions with such persons lead them to compare their insides to their counterpart’s outsides.

Unattractive aspects, including the details of personal problems, are often kept secret for fear of negative judgments, unwanted advice, and the fear of becoming fodder for gossip.

Did I hear you say your understanding of yourself is accurate? Consider driving habits. Ninety percent of U.S. accidents are caused by human error, but 73% of drivers think they are better than average behind the wheel. Homo sapiens enjoy the capacity to shine a favorable light on themselves with little awareness.

Adults can be like teens struggling with an identity crisis. Personal choices then determine which self to put on display and with whom. 

Perhaps dear friends get a rarely-seen version. Therapists, ideally, evoke the most forthright and open individual. One would hope the existence of a “negotiating” version of you emerges to buy a car or sell a house, but not with those who are closest, including children or a spouse.

There is one other persona I haven’t mentioned—the one who will turn up tomorrow—your future self. Events of consequence, such as situations requiring risk, chance, loss, trauma, triumph, love, and raising offspring, can modify a person.

There could be several new versions ahead for the one that goes by your name, with no small part due to aging. Altered future selves are inevitable, including those created by the desire to change one’s life.

If possible, you may find it most satisfying to have only one version of who you are: the truest one. This would allow you to be genuine to all who know you, not role-playing different characters to fit their expectations.

Life is easier this way.

The best of your time ahead depends partly on what you make of it. Like an unfinished sculpture, it is in your hands.

Though the sculpture is never completed, remember this: it is the only “selfie” that matters.

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All the photos are the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

At the top is a Supercell Storm with Lightening Over a Combine Near Springfield, CO, 12/16/23. It is followed by versions of The Wave in Coyote Buttes, AZ, all from 2024.

November 21, 2015

Everything I Needed to Know I Learned While Buying a Car

buying-a-carYou probably don’t enjoy buying a car, assuming you’ve experienced this convoluted trauma. Yet running the auto dealership gauntlet is informative: about yourself, whether you understand how relationships work, and your mastery of tough stuff like negotiation.

The schooling offered in the auto showroom begins with “curb appeal:” how the vehicle looks. All material goods offer the same criterion by which to judge them. We value houses, watches, and phones this way. First impressions don’t stop there, but continue with the physical appearance of everyone you meet, the sound of a new voice, the scent as you stand close.

You then peer under the hood of the car. Applying this to people, you get to know them, check for substance beneath the surface; evaluate the individual’s humanity, strength, and kindness or self-interest. At least I hope you do and thereby move beyond the dazzle of a stunning exterior. A pity if instead your head is stupefied by a gorgeous facade and you ignore a person of common appearance bearing treasures within.

The vehicle sales rep hopes you will be captured by his kindness and prone to an impulsive decision. He highlights the techno whistles and bells. Will you be lured by his siren song and dance? We all need resistance to a sales pitch, whether the seller is trying to unload a TV or promote himself.

Given an auto’s cost one can benefit from homework. Do you have the patience to perform the needed research or will you do what “feels” right? We face the war between emotions and intellect daily: between due diligence and slipshod judgment.

How dependent are you? Do you rely on others to make decisions? Friends and relatives have lots of opinions about cars and, if they are experienced and smart, such knowledge is worth considering. Best, however, to learn what can be discovered on your own as well as from expert advice: “own” the process by which you come to own the product.

The act of car buying shakes up some of us. We plead for a spouse or friend by our side. A successful transaction demands the ability to say “no” and stick to it — a test for many.

Decades ago my wife and I lived in New Jersey. Soon after our arrival our car was destroyed in an accident. We hoped to purchase a new 1972 Dodge Duster, expecting that we’d get a better price than on the just released 1973 model.

The first salesman we met counted on our being callow customers, novices in the veiled combat of car buying. The man told us he had the only remaining new 1972 Duster in New Jersey. Aleta and I understood there would be many more ’73 models than the 1972 Dodge we wanted, but we didn’t trust his report. He offered us a price, but we said no and began to walk out. The sales rep trailed us. As our closeness to the door increased the price of the vehicle decreased. We soon discovered dozens of available 1972 Dusters, the cars he said were as rare as a dodo, the extinct flightless bird.

There is power in letting people see your back. Wanting a thing less than the next guy usually gives you the upper hand in a transaction with him. So, too, in romance. Rhett Butler’s last words in Gone with the Wind offer an example of the attitude I’m writing about. Such a stance often elicits concessions by the counterparty in his effort to get what he wants from you. Generally, the longer you remain silent the more favorable the terms offered become. In effect, you can set most of the conditions.

When desiring a thing desperately we risk giving away the best of ourselves in the act of acquisition. Money is the least of it. Honor and basic human decency may be forfeited, as well. Among ancient philosophers, the Stoics gave particular emphasis to the dangers of becoming too “attached,” whether to objects, honors, power, or people. Buddhists make the same argument.

Self-possession, they would argue, is far more valuable than anything you can buy.

Some things in life are not worth the price you pay for them. As many young people have discovered, cars can be among those things. Sadly, the list of overvalued commodities, jobs, titles, high income lifestyles, and relationships is beyond reckoning. Beware defining your hoped-for future by a list of “must haves.”

As the knight guarding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade would remind us, “choose wisely.”