Self-Reflection and External Feedback

When it comes to changing how people are/behave, the trigger for that change, by definition, has to come via either self-reflection or by others providing feedback on how one is.

All that’s obvious. But is there a fatal flaw in both those drivers of change, as pointed out by Thomas Bernhard in his novella, Walking? Take self-reflection:

“If we observe ourselves, we are never observing ourselves but someone else. Thus we can never talk about self-observation, or when we talk about the fact that we observe ourselves we are talking as someone we never are when we are not observing ourselves, and thus when we observe ourselves we are never observing the person we intended to observe but someone else. The concept of self-observation and so, also, of self-description is thus false.”

That sounds uncomfortably true, doesn’t it? And if that’s true, what else isn’t?

“Looked at in this light, all concepts (ideas)… like self-observation, self-pity, self-accusation and so on, are false. We ourselves do not see ourselves, it is never possible for us to see ourselves.”

But why can’t others serve as more objective sources of feedback on us? The answer lies in the question, namely there is no such thing as an “objective” source, writes Bernhard:

“We also cannot explain to someone else (a different object) what he is like, because we can only tell him how we see him, which probably coincides with what he is but which we cannot explain in such a way as to say this is how he is. Thus everything is something quite different from what it is for us… And always something quite different from what it is for everything else.”

Going down the rabbit hole can be so revelatory, but not necessarily satisfying.