Friday, January 30, 2009

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Who knows you better, you or your friends?

I've been thinking about this a good bit lately. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with two friends who seem to have a much higher view of me than I have of myself. Another friend has constantly been telling me I appraise myself wrongly (not just in one respect - pretty much every time I describe myself, he tells me that no, I'm another way).

The question was first: do my friends know me better than I know myself? But this question is too self-absorbed, too narrow, and hardly inspires genuine thought. So I widened it. For people in general (including you, dear reader) who knows someone better, the person himself, or his friends? I'd like to believe I know myself better, but acknowledge there are at least some ways in which I know virtually nothing about myself that others seem to understand quite well.

The question then becomes: if someone else knows you better than yourself, how do you come to understand yourself as well as they do?

2 comments:

Dan of Manly Firmament said...

My advice would be to ask the other person what they think of you. But hey, maybe I'm crazy.

PoorKchoP said...

heard of the Johari window? that what this makes me think of anyway