Out of Egypt:

i admit i have a problem: i think i'm an interesting conversationalist

Listening to: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Category: Exhibitionistic Introspection

Does this keep me from listening to other people? Sometimes, definitely.

Does it cause me to say stupefyingly boring and/or esoteric things to people who don't care? That too.

I find myself amusing. I like when other people are amused by me. I've crafted a persona of wit so carefully that it's become myself now. I find myself making responses to things people say almost automatically, before I realize what I'm saying. Usually they're socially appropriate, but sometimes they're not.

People say I'm sincere, as if it's a striking characteristic. So why do I feel like such a phony?

Part of all this is due to my needing a break. This is an unnatural lifestyle I lead over here. I'm in an even more insular world than Covenant, though (thankfully) one with less-complicated social politics, though part of that might just be that I haven't involved myself with them.

Favorite verse: "I have calmed and quieted my soul/Like a weaned child with his mother is my soul within me."

I've often wondered that if sincerity is something we have to work at, then why do we call it sincere?

Posted by: funke at March 27, 2006 10:57 PM

that's my favorite one, too. introspection can lead to such needless worry, Evan. take it from a navel addict.

and I don't think sincerity IS something we work at (which is probably your point, Sarah). it's a by-product, something elusive that flits away as long as we're trying hard to get it. we expand and realize our character by focusing on the expansive and the real.

Posted by: charlotte at March 28, 2006 2:06 AM

Well, it might be possible to become sincere after working at it long enough so it's one of those targets that we work towards. It would be nice if we could have sincerity gyms. Makes me think of the old 400 lb sincerity bench press (where you tell someone struggling with a heavy object that you'd love to help and actually mean it), the 4x100 sincerity hurdle (where you need to sincerely complment 4 people in 100 meters in an airport)& etc.

Posted by: jb at March 28, 2006 5:35 AM

The pop cultural concept of sincerity is "just be yourself." This kind of implies that you have a monolithic self that exists somewhere behind all the masks you adopt for everyday life (can you tell I am becoming increasingly more skeptical of the modernist project?). But if your natural self is deserving of God's wrath, do you really want to "be yourself"? You want to be a new self, and that takes work. There will be contradictions, maybe even performances. But does that mean that the new self is fake? Maybe on your own, it is, but in Christ, no.

Read Goffman's "Presentation of the Self in Society" sometime. It will make you extremely paranoid about people (they are ALL acting!! No one is sincere!!) but it will also make you question what really "counts" as sincerity. Because sometimes the messages we send through our actions (the message "I am sincere" communicated through certain gestures and types of words chosen, for instance) may be somewhat false regarding our personal selves ("I feel really phony as I project this message of sincerity," for instance) but are actually true of the larger body we represent ("but Christ Whom I represent is sincere and He would listen attentively to you").

Anyway, some food for thought.

Posted by: funke at March 28, 2006 7:51 AM