While trying to sort through the last of my boxed possessions after moving house, I came across my old university essays and started reading. My goodness! I found it hard to believe that it was me who had written in such an articulate manner about such complex subjects. It frightened me. Where did it all go? Did I peak intellectually over ten years ago? For all of my endeavours nowadays I show nothing of the calibre evident in what I found.

I thought that this was probably a similar experience that one has when seeing an old photo and grieving over the lost looks of joyful youth. But I tried to pick my self-esteem off of the floor and to think of things whereby time has blessed me or changed me for the good and, to be honest, this did me no favours at all. It’s not that I doubted my self-worth; it’s more of a case that I couldn’t figure out whether I had grown or regressed.

It’s incredibly difficult to get back in touch with who you once were. You are attempting to reconstruct a state of mind, a way of thinking and the only tools that you have at your disposal are the effects of past actions or any documentation in the form of photographs, film, diaries etc. The most helpful evidence is your memory of past actions, but this becomes warped and spun by the bias of proceeding thoughts and events. At best you may be left with “I did this and the effect was that. I believe my motive was this.” From this you can hazard as much of a guess about what you are like now as what you were like then, judging by the aspect and intention you attribute to it.

In the same way that it’s difficult and perhaps not sensible to trust a stranger, the same can frequently be said about the former you. It’s a shady character. It’s involved and meshed with your present, in some part it is your present, yet its will is long silent and sterile to your mode and character.

This is why self-reflection is so important. Some may consider it narcissism but it’s a way of joining the dots along the way, understanding your process, your progress and your changes and the consequences by which the many former yous have passed the baton until the present. Memory is a valuable thing to which understanding is an even higher addition. Keeping the past as a reminiscent slideshow without understanding the path that stands between both times will only conjure a spectre that alienates you. Learning to take some time every so often to analyse oneself can be difficult (the shortest route to contentment is suppression) but learning to be open, honest and critical with yourself is the only way to understanding, just like it is in any other walk of life.

Also, if we can learn from our own journey through true understanding rather than simply documenting cause and effect then we can share this with others in the hope that they can take help or comfort from it. This, in its essence, is what art does, finding the inherent truth in the subject that can carry across all subjects. It’s also why rehabilitation groups can be rewarding. It’s how we can grow generation by generation to a higher level of being. In order to evolve as a people we need humility and love but also the drive to make those judgements of ourselves. We must be humble but we must not be meek.

I think reading back my coursework was a disorientating experience because I have done nothing since then to appreciate or keep alive the understanding of what is required to achieve that. My relief at not having to undergo another essay or exam has resulted in my having dropped it from my way of life and mind-set. I am far removed from having the resources, discipline and intensity to reproduce such work, but, in fairness, I can see how I may have transferred those in order to complete other achievements.

Self-assessment is also a practice that works more obviously in the opposite direction. If one wishes to advance rather than tread water then one has to be critical, open and honest. The thread of your own history is the most discerning view of your future possibilities. The longer you maintain the thread, the more confident and self-assured you can be as you move forward.

***

It’s rare for me to feel completely thankful, but recently I have felt exactly that. It has been the culmination of a strange period, which has been full of change, challenge and coincidence.

“Keep your eyes open to your mercies. The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life.”
Robert Louis Stevenson

This month's favourites:
   PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
   Albert Camus, The Rebel
   Pulp Fiction (1994)