Thoughts on Openness

[cjsmith]

Something I'll call "openness", the willingness to share of oneself with others....

Somewhere deep in my psyche, I find I respect those people who are open with others unilaterally: the ones who will, for example, admit to doubts in front of a friend who would never do the same.

Granted, there are limits. The Japanese have a concept for some sort of parity -- appropriateness -- in the amount of personal disclosure. I forget the name. It means don't tell your life troubles to the bank clerk, and don't profess undying love on the first date. I understand Americans are less conscious of this, but most still follow it somewhat.

Still, the willingness to share of oneself, from the heart, even when nothing comes back... that bespeaks a level of comfort with oneself, a level of self-acceptance, that I admire. It even shows a certain amount of acceptance of the other person exactly as he is, closed and untrusting as he might be at that moment.

That's one side of me. I admire this.

Then there's the side saying "you fool, don't ever open up first, because it gives a potential weapon to a potential enemy." There is some truth in that also. There's always the chance the other person will have some need to lash out or to quietly reassure himself of his own superiority (both of which could damage the friendship). It could even be argued that the less open that person is, the less self-accepting he is likely to be, and the less self-accepting he is, the more those needs might arise!

Still, I hope someday to get to the point where I'd be able to share my innermost hopes and fears and doubts with a friend who was interested but was unable to share the same in return. Maybe I wouldn't always do it, but I'd be able.

That's a symptom. What it requires is what I'm really searching for: self-acceptance.

Comments

[firecat]

Still, the willingness to share of oneself, from the heart, even when nothing comes back... that bespeaks a level of comfort with oneself, a level of self-acceptance, that I admire.

Hm. I see your general point, but my mileage varies on the specifics: I don't see a lot of correlation, positive or negative, between people who discuss their negative feelings ("innermost doubts") a lot and people who seem comfortable with themselves - although it makes sense that they'd be connected for some people.

They're not all that connected for me because self-acceptance for me is deeply entwined with acceptance in general. And when I'm in an acceptance frame of mind, I don't really have doubts, and I don't perceive myself as deeply "layered" with an "inner" and an "outer" part.

(Needless to say, this is not a permanent condition! It's something that I get to at times.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hrm. At the very least, I worded that suboptimally. How about, instead of "innermost doubts", say any deep feeling? Or perhaps closer to my experience, any self-contradiction? Would that show more correlation? (I think it might for me; I do see some people who I perceive as sharing their self-doubt widely in the hope of gaining acceptance from others, and that's not the sort of thing I meant.)

When I'm in an acceptance frame of mind, I still have doubts... or rather, I perceive myself as a bundle of contradictions. At any given moment, one side of a contradiction may be showing more than another, so I do get a bit of a "layered" feel. The acceptance can be (and at my best moments, is) not only about each set of feelings and thoughts, but also about the very fact that they're contradictory.

Anyhow, as I said in my reply to klwalton above, I see self-acceptance as one of the things required for me to be open. I admire openness in others because of what it would take for me to be able to do that. I see it as courageous whether it really is or not. :-) I don't know if those traits actually have to go together for everyone, or even whether I myself would automatically be very open towards other people if I were wonderfully self- (and in-general-) accepting.

[firecat]

I think there's a correlation between being self-accepting and not being terribly angsty about what other people think of them, and sometimes that would translate into showing deep feelings and/or showing/acknowledging self-contradiction.

Yes, yes: I think humans are inherently self-contradictory so a self-accepting state of mind embraces that aspect too.

Based on what I know about you, I agree that self-acceptance would go along with openness for you. I didn't mirror your use of "required" because I suspect that moments of openness could lead to more self-acceptance as well as the other way around.