If I Only Knew

In the movie Rounders Matt Damon portrays a poker player. I have a fondness for movies with chief character narratives. You know, where you hear what the main character is thinking or feeling. He says, "Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker."

Bobby Burns has fun with the arrogance of thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought in his poem about a fine lady sitting in front of him during worship. She is finely dressed with a glorious hat. On the hat crawls a louse. Burns studies this critter's arduous journey to her scalp where it will feast on her blood. He amuses himself with the same question we would ask, "What would she think, if she only knew!"

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion.

Once a history professor gave a lecture with a thick line of green snot  trailing from his right nostril. He was one of those kind of intellectuals who did not "bare fools gladly." So, to watch him in his hour of humiliation gave the entire class pure joy. We all filed out of class smiling with glee at what he would realize when he next looks in the mirror.


If Charles Cooley is correct, our minds are social. His "Looking Glass Self" is one where we find our core identity in the eyes of those persons we value most. Who am I? I am what I believe you think I am. If I believe you see me as worthy, I am worthy. If unworthy, then unworthy. (Mostly, it is a mixture of the two.) Can it be as simple as that? What if those I love disagree in what I perceive as their evaluation of me? What if, I uncritically accept the impressions of everyone I meet? Would I even have a stable view of myself? Unlikely.

I think my self's view of myself results from a conversation. One partner in that dialogue is just plainly me, the other is you and those like you. The more intimate our relationship, the more defining is your view of me. I hear some folks, who know me well, say that I am rude, unkind, insensitive, narcissistic, cruel and generally nasty. I think they are wrong. I know for a fact that they are being overly generous. I am far worse than that.

I am that lady, who learned of her lice and that professor after he looked into a mirror. I am that unwitting sucker at the table.