self.

It's a rainy evening on a Friday, which means traffic will be slow. And since I have nowhere to be, I don't need to leave the office now and join in the madness. There are a couple of posts I had wanted to put up, but I don't feel like it because I suddenly found them to be too self-centric. I mean, all my posts are self-centric, but hmm.. Instead, I'm blog-plugging from one of my favorite bloggers on the subject of... self. Haha oh the irony! Here's a chunk from what he's written:

One of the things I've learned from writers like James Alison, a theologian deeply informed by Rene Girard, is how rivalry is intimately associated with our self-concept. Specifically, most of us create, build up and maintain our self-esteem through rivalry with others. Our sense of self-worth is created and supported by some contrast and opposition to others. I am a self in that I am over and against others. Better. Smarter. More righteous. More successful. More authentic. More humane. Less hoodwinked. More tolerant. More insightful. More kind. More something.

In short, selfhood is inherently rivalrous. Rivalry creates the self. Rivalry is the fuel of self-esteem and self-worth.

Which means that the self is inherently violent. The definition of the self is an act of aggression and violence. To be "Richard Beck" is to engage in violence against others, if not physically than affectionally. From sunrise to sunset every thought I have about myself is implicated in acts of comparison, judgement, and evaluation of others, allowing me to create a sense of self and then fill that self with feelings of significance and worthiness.

And this also applies to those with low self-worth, those who define themselves negatively in comparison with others. The violence here is simply internalized, directed toward the self rather than toward others. But at the end of the day it's the same mechanism, you are either winning or losing the rivalry, having either high or low self-esteem, but in either case the self is still being defined by violence.

Things like blogging, given its nature, can bring these rivalrous feelings to the surface making them more transparent (if you are self-reflective). But it's just a symptom of a deeper sickness, that the self in inherently rivalrous and that self-esteem is a feeling of significance achieved over against others.

We feel good about ourselves by stepping on the heads of others, physically or psychologically.

In fact, this may be the best definition of "original sin": Being a self makes you a violent person.

...

How do you become a non-violent, non-rivalrous human being and person?

I think the self has to die. That's what the bible seems to think. There must be a letting go, a surrendering, an emptying of the self. All efforts to define the self by acts of justification, the accumulation of evidence and data that the self is significant, have to be renounced.

Phrased positively, the self must be experiencing as gift, as an experience of gratuitous and surprising grace.

Only there, in the midst of grace, can the neurotic knot at the root of our violence be loosened and undone.

I don't mean to sound stupid, but what did he mean? How do I do that? Mm, in the comments section, he wrote, "Like I noted in the post, I keep trying to put gratitude out in front of me. Keep blogging (or working or creating) for the joy of it. If we can keep joy in front of us I think we'd all be much happier and healthier, in any endeavor." That makes sense. Be grateful. Don't think so much about myself. Easier said than done.