Self-Obsessed but Not Introspective? How Does That Work?

Introspection: The examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes.

Trump talks about Trump all day. He tells you what Trump has decided, what Trump believes, and what Trump will do. He describes Trump’s features and qualities. He’s the last word on Trump, the only person you can count on for the real news.

Despite his endless self-examination, self-observation, and self-reporting, very few people would describe him as introspective. Indeed, the majority would say that he’s the absolute best at not introspecting. No one doesn’t introspect as terrifically as Donald Trump.

Many of his supporters love this about him, a man of steadfast action and clarity, no second guessing, no self-doubt.

The majority of Americans think it’s deeply troubling.

So what gives? How can he do all that self-examination and not be introspective?

Observing yourself is like trying to eat your own mouth. The self observes the self; the mouth eats the mouth. Every last bite of mouth? No, because the bit of the mouth that’s doing the eating can’t eat itself.

Same goes for introspection. The bit of the self that is doing the observing can’t observe itself. For that, you’d need another observer self, which alas couldn’t observe itself. Here it gets complicated, so let’s name the selves involved:

I⁰: Your unexamined life; for example, the self that goes to work every day.
I¹: Your unexamined story about that life; for example, saying, “I’m a hard worker!”
I²: Your story about the I1 storyteller; for example, saying, “I like to say that I’m a hard worker.”
I-ons (on and on and on...): The recognition that for every story you tell, another could be told about its storyteller. There’s no final story.

Source: Created by the author

If you expand this out to an exchange between multiple people it’s completely intuitive.

I⁰: Trump’s behavior.
I¹: "Trump is making America great!”
I²: "I¹, You just like to think he’s making America great."
I-on: "I², you like to psychologize I¹ don't you?"

Trump is very much an I¹ chauvinist. For him, it’s the best level. He’s always the last word on who he is. He’d fit right into the self-affirmation movement. His secret? The Secret: What you say you are is what you become.

That’s a kind of self-observation, I¹ as the last word. But it’s not what most people mean by introspection.

Introspection begins at I², when you can see yourself telling a story about your behavior. To be able to say “I like to think that I’m a hard worker” highlights that it is a story, which loosens the story, making it open to and re-interpretation.

There are people who campaign for each of the four levels as though it's the right one:

I⁰: “Stop thinking. Just be. Don’t be self-conscious. Don’t second guess. Return to your animal nature!” This would be some people’s definition of mindfulness or the goal of meditation, a return to “beginner’s mind.”

I¹: “Give yourself pep talks. Don’t let haters put you down. See yourself the way you want to be and you become that way. Affirm yourself no matter what.” Think and grow rich or any of the money-mega-churches campaign for I¹. The GOP is deeply devoted to I¹ these days. It wasn’t always.

I²: “Don’t believe everything you think. Question your assumptions. Challenge yourself. Don’t be complacent, don’t rest on your laurels. Introspect." The scientific method is largely based on an I² perspective. It’s why scientists are encouraged to challenge each other’s intuitions.

I-ons: “There’s no final interpretation, indeed no final truth about what you are, so give up looking for one. You can’t know yourself and therefore you can't really know anything. Ther's no truth.” Post-modernism and Zen can lean toward I-ons. I-ons can breed the kind of cynicism or nihilism we see in the GOP these days – Roger Stone, or this famous quote from Karl Rove talking to liberal reporter about the GOP:

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“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

There’s that common saying, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” It’s a great expression of the pull toward our I¹ unexamined story, knowing ourselves patly, firmly, finally, once and for all. Someone challenges you to observe your story, and you do, just long enough to say “that’s my story,” and then you tuck yourself right back into it.

And me, what do I campaign for? I’m into multi-levelheadedness, being at each of these levels of self-awareness at the right time – sometimes just being, sometimes digging in our heels on our self-affirming story, sometimes introspecting about our mental and emotional processes and sometimes remembering that there is no ultimate story, no way to know our true self, just different interpretations of who we are.

I think of these four I’s as like golf clubs in a golf bag. Pick the right club for the shot, something Trump ought to recognize as a golfer. But his bag seems to only have the one club, I¹ all the way. Proud, unexamined stories of who he is have been very good to him.

He’s climbed far on his unexamined self-narrative and he’s got a minority of Americans swooning over his ability to stick to his positive I¹ self-reporting, something we'd all like to do if we had the self-discipline to dig in our heals that hard.

Or lack of the self-discipline necessary to visiting the less comfortable I² level where real introspection happens.