Elizaveta Friesem
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Understanding Ourselves

PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)

why do we feel a certain way?
why do we act or think a certain way?
why do we make certain decisions?

you as a map
understanding yourself - mapping yourself
We often expect to know well the place where we live (a city), but we often miss many details

you as a marble machine
patterns of thoughts and emotions
when we experience something (anything) the marble goes through passages predetermined by our previous experience, inborn characteristics and context


We all think that we understand ourselves, that we know our own feelings, motivations, and logic. But do we really?

​
Understanding ourselves means developing self-awareness. Obviously, human beings are already self-aware to a certain extent. But there are different levels of understanding oneself. Understanding oneself better is a life-long enterprise. In general, it is not necessary for a human being to understanding her/himself fully in order to live a fairly decent life. However, this life is not going to be ideal. Without deeper understanding, we risk hurting ourselves and others, because we will be constantly falling into traps created by our own well-meaning minds.

I would argue the that the history of humanity can be described as gradually (in a very slow and meandering way) starting to understand ourselves better as individuals and as society.

Understanding oneself better is not easy, because there is no easy clear cut description of what we need to know. Explanations about who and how we are as human beings are constantly developing in different directions. There are plenty of conflicting explanations.

Think, for example, about explanations provided by Freud, that have influenced current explanations, but have also been criticized in many ways. More recently, people started becoming more aware of their biases. A widely popular Implicit Association Test was created, and its creator have claimed that they can help people understand how biased they are. However, this test has been since criticized for the lack of accuracy. This criticism does not mean that we do not have biases, but it may mean that understanding them is more difficult than the test claimed to be.

Here are some of the things that better understanding ourselves can can help us achieve:​
  • Become calmer and more grounded by learning how our feeling and emotions work.
  • Manage conflicts in an honest and empathic way.
  • Better evaluate our judgments by noticing the limitations of our senses and brains.
  • Tame our perfectionism without becoming disorganized or careless.
  • Practice open-mindedness while appreciating our boundaries.
  • Step out of our comfort zones without losing the integrity of our worldviews.

Each of these accomplishments is possible to achieve thanks to though-provoking research and society and individuals. I have created a workshop that introduces participants to this research and to practices that one can try to better understand oneself and, as a result, get a chance to live a better life in a happier society.

One specific application of understanding ourselves: eating healthy by listening to your own body. Sometimes we can interpret our sensations as a need to eat, while our body does not really need to eat. If we don't know how to understand when we are full (this is developed in childhood, and that is why it is important not to make children eat if they say they are full).

To understand ourselves, counterintuitively, we can observe others. We need to observe others with empathy, keeping in mind that actions and reactions we dislike in others may be also present (albeit in a different from) in ourselves.

To understand other we can also pay more attention to what is known as "media". (I put this word in quotation marks because I propose a special interpretation of this term in my book Media Is Us.) Media is often criticized or even feared. However, I believe that media can also teach us something very important about ourselves, if we see it without blame.

To learn more about the importance of understanding ourselves, see the page on self-awareness.

because we are meaning-making creatures, we can make different meaning out of the same thing. When feel sad, I can genuinely believe that everything is bad. I will assign this meaning to my circumstances. Or I can interpret my experiences differently and tell myself that I am tired and, therefore, see things a certain way. This is also an interpretation, a meaning I assign to my circumstances. How do I choose one to guide me? I choose the second one because it seems more productive and effective, even if I do not fully believe in it in the moment I am choosing it. Over time, I get used to choosing this second interpretation, I believe in this meaning. But a part of me knows that’s it’s a matter of choice.
​
​​About this project: Start page
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    • About
    • Books
      • Media is us >
        • Principles of communication
        • Micro- and macropower
        • ACE model
        • Description of chapters
        • When conflicts get out of control
      • Hypertexts >
        • Me, looking for meaning >
          • A >
            • Am I strong or am I weak?
          • B >
            • Binaries
            • Both sides
            • Bureaucracy
          • C >
            • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
            • Choice
            • Circumstances
            • Cognitive biases
            • Common sense
            • Communication
            • Content and form of this book
            • Coronavirus and me
            • Culture
            • Cycle of violence
          • D >
            • Depression
            • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
            • Doing the right thing
          • E >
            • Emotional pain
            • Empathy
            • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
            • Everybody has their struggles
            • Everybody is connected
            • Explain/excuse conflation
          • F >
            • Feelings and emotions
            • Forgetting about your purpose
            • Free will
          • G >
            • Good vs. Bad
          • H >
            • How much do we understand each other?
            • Human brain
            • Human nature
            • Human needs
            • Human thinking
            • Human thinking is nonlinear
            • Hurt people hurt people
            • Hypertext books
          • I >
            • I am an optimist
            • Ideas
            • "I'll never understand!"
            • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
            • Inner compass
            • Interpretation
            • "It is what it is"
          • J
          • K >
            • Knowing your true purpose
            • Knowledge
          • L >
            • Language
            • List of completed pages
            • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
          • M >
            • Make Sense
            • May I meet this, too, with kindness
            • Meaning as importance
            • Mean and stupid
            • My Anxiety
            • Meaning
            • Meaningless
            • Meaning wars
            • Meaning of life
            • Meaning communities
            • Meanings perceived by animals
            • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
            • Media
            • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
            • My perfectionism
            • My quest for meaning
          • N >
            • Norms
          • O >
            • Objectification
            • On being a scholar
            • On being a writer
            • On being right
          • P >
            • Paradox
            • Parenting
            • Privilege
            • Polarization
            • Postmodern worldview
            • Postmodern philosophy
            • Power
            • Power of the mind
            • Problem/solution binary
          • Q
          • R >
            • Reality
            • Rhizome in philosophy
          • S >
            • Science, religion and art
            • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
            • Self-awareness
            • Self-empathy
            • Stories we tell
            • Society vs Individual
            • Subjectivity and objectivity
            • Suggested citation format
            • Synesthesia
          • T >
            • "The Death of the Author"
            • The importance of having a purpose
            • Truth
          • U >
            • Understanding ourselves
            • Us and them
          • V >
            • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
            • Violence in the human nature
          • W >
            • What does it mean to "understand"?
            • What is a text?
            • What we can learn about ourselves from media
            • What is "natural"?
            • What's the point?
            • What will this project become?
            • Where do meanings come from?
            • Why am I trying to stay sane?
            • Why do people hurt each other?
            • Why is language so unhelpful?
            • Why do everyday objects make sense?
            • Why do misunderstandings happen?
          • X
          • Y
          • Z
        • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
    • Editing
      • Me as your editor
      • How I will help you
      • Pricing
      • Privacy policy
    • Blog
    • Workshops
      • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
      • Surviving the polarization vortex
      • Understanding yourself
      • Not enough
    • Learn more
      • Bio
      • Talks and interviews
      • Essays
      • My poetry >
        • Russian poems >
          • Stranger
          • Lonely heart
          • Fairy tales
          • Dreams and nightmares
          • Puzzles
          • Moon
          • Seasons
          • Muse
          • Art
          • Games
          • Sketches
          • Nonsense
        • English poems
      • Educational materials
    • Contact me