I have a love-hate relationship with charisma. This is probably because I think of myself as having pretty low charisma. Doesn't everyone who lacks something that is socially valued feel a bit like that sometimes? And from time to time during my life I've come across people with loads of charisma. The old “what have they got that I am missing” thing.
How does one react to that kind of feeling? Sometimes I feel that “sour grapes” sense – because I'm bad at it, it can't be worth much. Other times, it seems more like just plain envy. Like, “I want that.” A lot of people want it – people make a lot of money selling courses on how ordinary people can become, well, charismatic, with high social status, valued members of their community – and if they are men, of course the promise comes attached to an endless supply of beautiful women just wanting to have casual sex. No, I'm not going to part with money for such a course, but I have just listened to the free introduction, complete with sales pitch. Which had several very good points.
What is always good to hear, in those free introductions, is that what you think you need to do to gain status is often exactly what not to do. Trying to impress is eminently unimpressive. Needing to be liked is a signal of low status, and is not attractive … except to the people who are going to keep you in that low status, because they are hooked on being in control. Positively, valuing yourself; not being thrown by criticism; not hiding away parts of yourself because you think they might not be approved of; and maybe most of all, being confident enough of your own status not to dwell on it, but to be curious, warm and non-judgemental about other people. “Humanise yourself.” “Connect rather than impressing.”
To me, this adds up to what may be the most significant and unexpected thing, that this is perfectly compatible with a healthy humility. (Here I'm going rather further than the free introductory talk!) If you are really yourself, with no pretentions to be someone else, but the way you truly want to be, then people respect you for that. And generally, the ways that we don't want to be are just the product of some early life experience where it was somehow necessary, but it isn't any more. Healthy humility is not about self-flagellation; not about blaming oneself for things that were painful and damaging. It is about recognising what is true about yourself. Maybe here we can take this further with terms from Carol Dweck (given a full and intelligent treatment by Maria Popova in Brain Pickings) and say that an unhealthy humility is having a ‘fixed mindset’ with low self-esteem. But a fixed mindset of high self-esteem doesn't work well either. In contrast, with a ‘growth mindset’, you can start from a realistic view of where you are starting from without being defeatist, as you believe in the possibility of growth and change. Or, in religious terms, ‘redemption’.
Peter Limberg has much to say here. He has worked hard at his public presentation and social skills, doing Dale Carnegie, Toastmasters, and no doubt more. He also projects an endearing kind of healthy humility, and an indifference (Stoic of course) to other people's opinions, with a nuanced view of celebrity. Is celebrity worth the trouble? The Ego tempts us, but is it really a good idea?
So, no, for sure I don't want to pursue charisma for its own sake. Nor riches, nor power, nor fame. And I want to be able to see through the charisma of others. But I do want to pursue “shedding the feeling that I'm not good enough”; (and see Peter Limberg again) I want to give up the need to please other people, more than being true to myself. But that isn't the end of the story, because here I'm talking from 4th order consciousness, and that's not where I want to stay, either.
Yes, I want to be myself, but also I want to help others become more of their own true selves, and that will sometimes mean prioritising other people's growth and development. Maybe the magic here is to sense where that prioritisation is coming from. If it comes from a need to please, then it isn't likely to do much good, beyond making someone happy just very short term. If it comes from a true self-transcendence, a recognition that when we get beyond 4th order self-authorship, the world opens up to being led from something deeper, higher, something in the space of love between us, and our identities are called into flux to respond to those calls, those promptings of love and truth in our hearts.
Topics: Complex psychology
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