The Want To Be Seen. The Fear of Being Looked At.
The strange paradox between our very human desire to be valued and understood in a time of mass judgment.
I’m finding a funny conundrum in everyone I know (including me):
The desire to be seen (which I wrote a multi-part series on, starting here).
Said less metaphorically: the very human want for connection, to be understood, and to belong. To be valued for what we contribute to the world (our uniquenesses, skills, sense of humor, etc). And to be appreciated for being, beyond what we contribute. That is, the freedom to be loved without performing, people pleasing, or caretaking.
And yet…
None of us want to be looked at. Or more clearly: observed, judged, witnessed.
I can’t really be surprised when we live in a world that vilifies people for trying out loud. Putting on display their own process of learning and growing. Just the other day, a fellow Substacker published an article on the paradox of women being judged and shunned for trying - until they are successful. At which case, the critics turn 180 degrees to call her an icon, a tastemaker, someone to watch.
As long as I can remember being alive, there has always been a taboo around being a beginner. Learning a new skill in front of others. Being bad at something until we are good at it. Was it that we were raised with too harsh of parents that now we all, collectively are unforgiving for the learning process? Have we completely erased the beginning stages - or messy middle stages, or the reality behind all the stages - that all we see are the polished facades a la Instagram posts and TikTok videos?
With the rise of the messy girl replacing the confining (and identifiably racist while also, ironically the cultural appropriation that is) clean girl, and with smarter minds than mine saying that the perfectionism of AI will tether younger generations into more honest personal expression online, I do have some hope.
I’m in this weird war, too.
On a personal level, I’m more open to being seen for who I truly am than I ever have been before. I’m more apt to speak my mind to those who have always opposed my vision, people I love dearly but have held me back. Sometimes out of love. Sometimes out of their own insecurities. Sometimes out of jealousy. To those people, I’ve stopped hiding and I’ve started saying what they desperately need to but desperately don’t want to hear.
Yet I’m much less visible (available, willing, open to, sucked in by) to the traps that have kept me stuck in fixer roles. Rather than presenting myself to dysfunction and people who need extra care, saving, rescuing, or help, I don’t take the bait. I don’t come running. I am no longer presenting myself as a caretaker or rescuer. I don’t carry people anymore. I’m not putting myself up for those opportunities anymore.
It’s a juxtaposition, for sure.
I feel the pull to create more - blog more, make more videos, photos, social media posts. In a boundaried way: unwilling to compromise (IE not be given the credit and compensation) with people and places that ask me to create for them.
And I feel a little more looked at, too. For the places I’ve stood up for myself - in my family, in my work - and that gaze that asks: ‘what will she do next?’
I guess I’ll go where I’m called. Learn as I go, be as unafraid to fail and try again in a public lens as I can, and remember that to be a beginner is what keeps us young. We’re all learning as we go, anyway. None of us really know what we’re doing.
What about you?
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