On Social Validation

How caring about what other people think of us leads to stagnation

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“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” - Marcus Aurelius

Today, appearances seem to matter more than outcome. Social validation drives most towards attaining success primarily in view of the outside world, with little care about the damage it may cause within. Our intuition tells us that a degree of concern towards the opinion of others should be fostered, but how far should one go to fit in? Our relationships, our job titles, our looks, how much money we have saved up in our bank accounts are all attributes of our innate willingness to sacrifice anything in order to feel validated.

Our concerns with outward appearances have been around well before social media. Carl Jung, fifty or so years ago, stated that if ones primary interest lies outside of themselves, they will never be satisfied. Instead, they will be permanently going after something higher and better, always outside and never within. No matter how sizable their successes are, how far up the social ladder they have come, they always remain the same within.

Jung wasn’t an ascetic yet he believed that the more outside success one garnered, the higher the expectations of the inner-man would become. The more he is ignored, the more he becomes a source of self-sabotage, of unpredictable bad luck, and inexplicable melancholy. The more actively one turns towards the outside world, and in turn ignores their inner-world, the more one becomes a shining apple, rotten from within. Jung called this the “sickness of Western man”.

How does one remove the worms from within the apple? At times it means blistering the outer-shell in order to get within. Stepping off the path of conformity is no small feat. Our very human nature propels us towards the herd. However, in order to enable ourselves to garner a more prolonged, less unpredictable position in society, we must first live a more authentic life. A stronger psyche. Someone who listens to their daimon, and lets fate take its natural course.

However cliche it may be, making art has been my personal escape. Throughout our lives we’ve been taught to look at a reference and draw accordingly. We are not asked to be observant, and take from our environment what we find useful, and morph it into something that is entirely our own. Instead, we feel more comfortable using a piece of carbon paper and tracing.

In accordance to life in general, this too is contrary. Those who stop living by reference ironically care less for the opinions of others. The eradication of fear is an exposure to it. As William Irvine said about the Roman, Stoic Senator Cato: “(A) way to overcome our obsession with winning the admiration of other people is to go out of our way to do things likely to trigger their disdain… Cato made a point of ignoring the dictates of fashion… According to Plutarch, Cato did this not because he “sought vainglory”; to the contrary , he dressed differently in order to accustom himself “to be ashamed only of what was really shameful, and to ignore men’s low opinion of other things.” In other words, Cato consciously did things to trigger the disdain of other people simply so he could practice ignoring their disdain.”

Perhaps a more prime example can be found in Diogenes, the 4th century philosopher, who advocated that one must take actions everyday in order to ridicule themselves. He did the most provocative, preposterous things in order to free himself from the chains of social normality. “When someone said to Diogenes, ‘Most people laugh at you’, he replied, ‘And doubtless donkeys laugh at them; but just as they pay no heed to the donkeys, I pay none to them.’”

The man makes a good point.

Overall, however, he was so good at detaching himself that the burden of life no longer felt heavy on his shoulders, and instead became a mirror for those around him. He showed how anyone could live at their own accord. Many famous figures looked up to him. Alexander the Great was so impressed that he stated:  “If I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes!” 

It would be wrong to think that we ought to make a fool out of ourselves in order to be free. If that helps to rip off our age old bandage, then so be it. The point, though, is to become more acquainted with our inner-selves. To become aware of the life-force within us that prompts our every move, however weak it may be at this point in our lives. In short, we ought to practice what Nietzsche called “psychological observation”.

Another important attribute to remember is that those who are the quickest to judge are often the ones who are hurting the most. In turn, their opinions ought to matter the least to us. They are people who are, as Jung said, examples of the sickness of the Western world. These people use judgement as a way to project their inner-suffering.

The ancient practice of exposing oneself to rejection will teach us that the world does not end at ridicule. The disapproval of one or many does not kill us, but instead, quite literally, makes us stronger. In the end it’ll make life worth the living. Once freed of our evolutionary fears of non-acceptance, we can cure ourselves of the sickness of the Western person.