“THIS ABOVE ALL: TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.” ~Shakespeare
In`tro`spec´tion`ist
Official Definition of ‘Introspectionist’:
n. 1. (Metaph.) One given to the introspective method of examining the phenomena of the soul.
Etymology of the word ‘Introspection’
- Intro: “on the inside” or “from within”
- Spek: “to observe”
My own definition:
Thinking to oneself, “Hey, where do I fit into this universe and how does it all work?”
Anyone who seeks truth by looking inward is an “Introspectionist”.
Simply put: “a person who self-reflects”.
Everyone is an “introspectionist” anytime they do a little introspection.
But what’s the purpose?
Typically, we find that when we examine our thoughts and feelings – whether that is writing in a journal, meditation, prayer, or a conversation with ourselves in our heads in nature (or even our car) – we gain self-knowledge, self-awareness. This slight awakening can help us better understand ourselves, our nature, and our relationships with others and give rise to making little changes for the better.
Little changes for the better can make life a lot easier and bring more happiness over the long haul. So shouldn’t we all be introspecting more often?
About the Author:
My birth certificate says my name is Jami. Nice to meet you. And THANK YOU for being here, – on my blog, and on planet Earth.
If you enjoy the erratic, magical, heartbreaking, and fascinating world and all its lovely, messy creatures, I hope you will also enjoy my blog.
I’ve been writing creative nonfiction since I was a kid when I started my diary the same reason any kid does: sheer and complete boredom. (For those of you born after 1990: In the previous century, kids would sometimes suffer from an ailment known as “I’m bored”, as there were no cell phones, internet, or computers and we only had three TV channels.) Also, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, with no neighbors or siblings my age, so what else was I going to do besides start a journal about my humdrum life and somehow make it seem important? I had to get creative.
Fast-forward a couple decades and I find myself traveling the world, meeting fascinating people, and having a lot of things to say about it. The most valuable lesson I’ve learned so far is that the world’s inhabitants are a bunch of loveable crazies.
The photo above was taken along a river in southern India. Many people ask me what the writing on the wall behind me says, thinking it must be a symbolic prayer or mantra. I tell them it’s a profound proverb written in the local Kannada language that roughly translates to “Please don’t throw your trash in the river”. Which really is great advice!
In all my knowledge acquired from years of travel to India and learning yoga from my teacher, Paramaguru R. Sharath Jois, the most important lesson is this: the best way to face fears is to have fun.
And so, laughter being essential to survival, I dig deep to find humor in life’s absurdities. And, ay dios mios, there’s a lot of gold down there!
Clearly, I don’t have it all together no matter what my Facebook profile portrays. Despite this, please enjoy reading my musings on my struggles and strife through life, love, travel, and yoga.
Read more about the author here – Jami Broom Bio.
Hi Jami. I’m enjoying your blog! Let me know if there’s a way to follow via wordpress or e-mail updates… I hope you’re enjoying the class at Creative Nonfiction.
Elizabeth
Thanks, Elizabeth! I added a little orange feed button at the top right, so you can subscribe there by clicking on that and picking the way you’d like to subscribe 🙂
I get the morphing faces too and like you seemed to start when I started to sleep less well, and always appear during the twilight of sleep.
The faces are monochrome but slightly orangy, bearly visible on an almost black background.
Only the face is seen, no hair, clothing or anything else, only the flesh of the face.
Like you the faces morph ever 2 or 3 seconds and change from happy to sad, or a serious face like one that looked like the complexion of a typical male red indian chief with a stern look with eyes that had seen much to concern him in life.
I have never seen female faces only male although some are gargoil looking. None of the faces are familiar and I never see landscapes. I have latterly with perseverance been able to force the face to smile or grimace at will but that ability seems difficult to maintain as it tends to want to keep morphing, so any effect I can have on the face’s expression lasts no more than a second.
I don’t believe in a Biblical god, ghosts or any other metaphysical phenomenon, being a scientific rationalist. Therefore I view the performance as a bleed through of processing from the subconscious.
A while back I read and article on the understanding of what makes a face attractive and it said we find beauty in faces that have 2 characteristics: 1) Symmetry about a vertical line down through the nose such that the more a face is symmetrical the more beautiful it is perceived to be: 2) If the face looks like an averaged face of the wider culture one lives in.
The artical said that we take snap shots of every face we see (one for males and one for females) from the time we were an infant and our brain continuously averages them creating the averaged male and averaged female face.
An analogy was given that if digitally you averaged 1000 male faces, most of the individual faces will be non-symmetrical: left eye higher in one person, the right in another, yet another will have a higher left ear another the right will be higher. But once averaged in morphing software the result would not just be a symetrical face but the more faces are averaged over time the more symmetrical our internal templates of beauty will be.
In addition to symmetry the resultant averaged face will be the average of say our culture. So, if you are Japanese and live in a Japanese culture having had no influence of other cultures and never had TV then your template of beauty of both males and females will be a Japanese face. The same applies with any culture.
A scientific rationale was given for why the brain did this. It said it has been found that people seen as beautiful (displaying facial symmetry and having an average face of their tribe or race) have a stronger immune system. Thus finding a partner with looks close to our internal template of beauty the better survival chances our children will have. Hence our desire to get the most attractive mate we can.
Although with today’s medical advances our nation’s health service looks after our longevity and hence why many young people today can overule this tendency to look for beauty even when its available to us and prioratise intellectual compatability instead.
Whether this averaging process the brain does and the area it does it in is some how bleeding into our conscious state when we start dropping off remains to be found out. But I believe the answer lies in neuroscience not metsphysics.
Thank you for this thoughtful reply! Glad to know I am not alone in seeing faces before I fall asleep at night, haha. And yes, I agree completely – neuroscience will help us understand what is happening here. I feel the world gets freakier and freakier though – we are starting to understand weird phenomena through science and technology like these fascinating new photos of the Universe.