Self Transparency

Self Transparency

                During class on Thursday, Professor Hansen said something repeatedly that stuck with me, “we cannot be fully transparent to ourselves.” This idea is closely linked to the preformative aspect of living in a society. Our performance changes constantly. We take on different roles depending on where we are, who we are with, what we are doing, and even just the time of day. This idea of changing our personality, our mannerisms, and our overall appearance is conditioned into us from the time we are able to talk. We are taught to act and talk in a certain way when we are in public. Most of us are taught to act like “little ladies” or “little gentlemen”. Because we are conditioned to act in a certain way during every part of our lives in which someone potentially may be watching, this performance bleeds over into all aspects of our lives. Even when we are not around other people, we still know how we are supposed to act, and we know that those actions represent what exactly we are supposed to believe. Has this pervasive performance molded and shaped not only how we act, but also what we believe? Surely it changes what we believe about ourselves and how we view ourselves? Because we are constantly performing, how do we really know who we are?

                Something about the society we live in makes it imperative to be able to perform well in a multitude of settings. One of the most notable ways in which we act is to cover up insecurities. It is evident in how we walk. In order to look confident, people walk with their shoulders up and their heads back. They adopt a sort of “swagger” to look as though they are completely sure of themselves. People dress in order to look self assured (professionals wear business suits when they are going to work in order to look the part). It is also evident in how people talk. When people speak while in a relatively formal group setting they add qualifiers to their speech like “I guess” “Does that make sense” “I mean” “like” and “kind of” almost subconsciously indicating that they are not entirely confident in what they say. They have not adopted it fully as their own idea and therefore cannot be judged for it. People also add vocalized pauses (ums) to their speech because they are not comfortable with the idea of having silence during their speech. All of this is indicative to the insecurities that we constantly try to cover up but are not quite able to. Why has our society conditioned us in such a way to be insecure about tiny flaws that are not unique to ourselves and to act as though we don’t have them while in public?