Young children don’t feel self-conscious. Neither do wise people. Think of the wisest person you know of. Would they care so much about what you are worrying about? Probably not.
So what’s the difference between you and them? You view the world through the perspective of hierarchy. Young children haven’t learnt to do this yet whilst wise people have realised the illusion.
When you look at the world this way you colour everything. It’s as if objects that hinder your goals are seen in a dark light and objects that help, appear with a halo on top. All else is blurred out. It is a world of snakes and ladders. Everything else is inconsequential and therefore largely ignored. Other people are our competitors in this game. By comparing ourselves with them we can see how we are getting on.
Viewing the world this way allows us to survive and make progress. If we paid attention to everything we saw it would be overwhelming. We wouldn’t be able to focus on anything. Viewing the world in terms of hierarchy allows us to navigate it. We need to be able to rank the things we see so we know what to focus on.
However, just because this strategy allows us to navigate the world does not mean we should confuse it with the real world. It is a distortion of reality. A useful one. But still a distortion. As Korzybski aptly wrote, ‘the map is not the territory’. Yet too often we confuse the map with reality.
Psychologists often talk about two kinds of consciousness. When we see the world in terms of hierarchy we are more likely to use what is called spotlight consciousness (narrow focus). As opposed to lantern or floodlight consciousness (broad focus). We use spotlight consciousness when we focus on tying our shoelaces. For that moment our mental representation of the world is dominated by the shoelaces. As if a spotlight is focused on them and that’s all we see. Conversely, when we are focused on nothing in particular we see everything. The world we are conscious of gets bigger. In this case, it’s as if there is a floodlight. Illuminating everything equally.
In floodlight consciousness you can’t prioritise, rank, or focus. Just as a spotlight is useless if the area is floodlit. Enlightened people can access this state of mind at will. Perhaps it is no mistake the word ‘enlightened’ contains the word ‘light’.
The problem facing most people is that they are trapped in spotlight consciousness. You focus on one thing one moment and another thing the next. You are embroiled in life. Never being able to step back and look at things objectively. It’s as if your conscious world has been condensed to the size of a football and you have no control over where you are kicked to next. You move away from pain and towards pleasure. This isn’t free will. Your strings are being pulled by emotional drives embedded in us as a result of evolution and upbringing. If you aren’t pulled around by pleasure and pain you decide you may as well be present in this moment.
You can only be truly free in the present moment. If you are in floodlight consciousness you are present. The present is a state of no time. When you are truly present you are not thinking of the past (regret) or thinking of the future (stress). In this state the past and future don’t exist. So even if you could focus on your wonky nose you wouldn’t worry about fixing it because that would require thinking of the future. Which you can’t do unless you come out of the present moment.
Viewing the world in spotlight consciousness is the heart of this problem. In floodlight consciousness it is logically impossible to be self conscious. If we are to have the thought that other people think my nose is ugly then we must be able to focus for at least a moment on your nose and on the idea of ‘other people’. And if you are deliberately focusing on something you are no longer in floodlight consciousness. Therefore, we cannot be self-conscious in floodlight consciousness as self consciousness requires focus.
Moreover, to be self conscious we have to first have decided which self to be conscious of. Why are we not worrying how our neighbour’s nose will look to other people? In floodlight consciousness you don’t prioritise yourself. You view the world in the third person. Like an artist looking over the scene they are painting. And you are just another character. Therefore, self consciousness is impossible. Side note: Isn’t it ironic that the more we care about ourselves the more self-inflicted suffering we put ourselves through?
Self consciousness required focus. Focus is a useful tool but it’s like a knife. You need to know when to use it and when not to. A knife should be picked up for dinner and laid down after. If you go through your day using it for every task you face you’re asking for trouble!