Narcissism and the Essential
After two days, I've finally managed to finish analyzing the transcript of the first participant. For an interview that isn't even as in-depth as it is supposed to be for a phenomenological research design, it sure took me longer to analzye. Part of it comes from my own inexperience with research from another profession. I spent most of the time trying to decode the jargons and acronyms that I have encountered. The other stems from my own reactions towards the statements and my own biases. I couldn't help using my own templates to organize the data. I find it difficult to forget who I am when I do this kind of research. If done properly, I will be able to arrive at the very essence of things--of how they appear before the participant's stream of consciousness. It's just that bracketing my idea of "me" away from the phenomenological process is a bit tricky to do.
Buddhist psychology and Freud agree that my concept of "myself" is merely a mental template of the "me" I present myself before you. That's what we label as "personality", an algorithm/template/schema by which I function. It is stable and trait-like. It is my "ego". However, what happens when something occurs outside of the template? Like the need to change is thrusted upon me? When I look inside of myself, who do I find? Do I find that faulty template, or do I find myself? Loosely defined, the self is merely a construction of labels adapted from the outside (ie: parents' temperaments) and then internalized (ie: "I inherit my parents' temperaments"). So if the "me" that I recognize is merely a hodgepodge of internalized externals, does that mean that I am the labels that I wear? Narcissm.
So I ask myself, why do I hide from myself? Why do I use these labels? Is it out of necessity that I need these labels? I love my shortcuts, and I pride myself in them (oh man, so I do pride myself in my own narcissism). I love my shortcuts because it enables me to make snap judgments. My mental shortcuts/templates allow me to predict another person's behavior, allows me to read other people's emotions, and allows me to charm other people into doing what I want them to do. My heuristics are based on carefully observing the people around me, replicating their templates in my mind, and forming connections that allow me to predict when that person will bend to my will. It's this very skill that allows me predict the kind of results my employer would like to hear from me, and it's what allows me to make calculated risks (like will he be able to see the phenomenon in a new light?).
I did the latter. I knew what he wanted. It's easy to manipulate data in that direction, but how would he react to a shift in perspective? Will he be able to see it through my internalized persona of participant one? If he is able to see it this way, then I can bank on another move: I will work on removing all labels and preconceptions in the data and strip it down to its very core. I'm not giving up my heuristics until I am certain that this guy can handle it.
Or maybe I ought to ask myself, can I handle it?
Buddhist psychology and Freud agree that my concept of "myself" is merely a mental template of the "me" I present myself before you. That's what we label as "personality", an algorithm/template/schema by which I function. It is stable and trait-like. It is my "ego". However, what happens when something occurs outside of the template? Like the need to change is thrusted upon me? When I look inside of myself, who do I find? Do I find that faulty template, or do I find myself? Loosely defined, the self is merely a construction of labels adapted from the outside (ie: parents' temperaments) and then internalized (ie: "I inherit my parents' temperaments"). So if the "me" that I recognize is merely a hodgepodge of internalized externals, does that mean that I am the labels that I wear? Narcissm.
So I ask myself, why do I hide from myself? Why do I use these labels? Is it out of necessity that I need these labels? I love my shortcuts, and I pride myself in them (oh man, so I do pride myself in my own narcissism). I love my shortcuts because it enables me to make snap judgments. My mental shortcuts/templates allow me to predict another person's behavior, allows me to read other people's emotions, and allows me to charm other people into doing what I want them to do. My heuristics are based on carefully observing the people around me, replicating their templates in my mind, and forming connections that allow me to predict when that person will bend to my will. It's this very skill that allows me predict the kind of results my employer would like to hear from me, and it's what allows me to make calculated risks (like will he be able to see the phenomenon in a new light?).
I did the latter. I knew what he wanted. It's easy to manipulate data in that direction, but how would he react to a shift in perspective? Will he be able to see it through my internalized persona of participant one? If he is able to see it this way, then I can bank on another move: I will work on removing all labels and preconceptions in the data and strip it down to its very core. I'm not giving up my heuristics until I am certain that this guy can handle it.
Or maybe I ought to ask myself, can I handle it?