We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
R. D. LaingRead
In a world full of danger, to be a potentially seeable object is to be constantly exposed to danger. Self-consciousness, then, may be the apprehensive awareness of oneself as potentially exposed to danger by the simple fact of being visible to others. The obvious defence against such a danger is to make oneself invisible in one way or another.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Self-consciousness arises from the awareness of potential judgment or danger when being seen by others.
This quote by R. D. Laing explores the concept of self-consciousness, suggesting that being aware of oneself in a visible manner exposes an individual to various dangers, including judgment and scrutiny from others. Laing argues that this awareness can lead to a desire for invisibility as a form of defense against the inevitable challenges and criticisms that come from being observed in a social context.
Themes
Self-ConsciousnessDangerVisibilityAwarenessSocial JudgmentInvisibility
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social anxiety, this quote can illustrate how visibility brings challenges.
More from R. D. Laing
All quotes →Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
R. D. LaingRead
Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.
R. D. LaingRead
The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
R. D. LaingRead
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.
R. D. LaingRead
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
R. D. LaingRead
Similar quotes
People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need in my life is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad. I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.
John DarnielleRead
When advertisers ignore diversity, it is because they don't think the lives of others matter. There is not enough of a financial imperative for those lives to matter.
Roxane GayRead
Well, we think that time "passes," flows past us, but what if it is we who move forward, from past to future, always discovering the new? It would be a little like reading a book, you see. The book is all there, all at once, between its covers. But if you want to read the story and understand it, you must begin with the first page, and go forward, always in order. So the universe would be a very great book, and we would be very small readers.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.
Don DelilloRead
She had acquired some of his gypsy ways, some of his nonchalance, his bohemian indiscipline. She had swung with him into the disorders of strewn clothes, spilled cigarette ashes, slipping into bed all dressed, falling asleep thus, indolence, timelessness...A region of chaos and moonlight. She liked it there.
Anais NinRead
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
William HazlittRead