Sunday, July 24, 2011

The self.

Hello everyone! I haven't blogged in ages, which as you know, is usually due to one of the 3 reasons:

1) My mothership has come to pick me up, but I firmly refuse, and so they sent twenty six little aliens to catch me but I've been evading them for the past few weeks and finally managed to exterminate all of them and hence I'm back.
(On a side note, someone just told me Mr Bean is actually an alien... that's why the opening sequence shows him falling from the sky under a spotlight thing. And also why he's so socially awkward. True/False?)

2) A hungry rat found its way into my CPU and has gnawed through all the circuits and wire and finally electrocuted itself and died. In the process, it has also wrecked my computer and I've spent the past few weeks trying to salvage it part by part.

3) I'm busy with a game.


This time round, it's not 1 or 2, and is indeed number 3! Because I've recently started on World of Warcraft (WoW) again, and I've been busy rushing to level 85 and gearing my character up for raids!
I've found a stable group now, but whether they're good enough to progress through Firelands is another question... sigh. Hope we can at least clear 4-6/7!


School is starting again, and there's alot of shit to be done too. Bidding for modules is starting soon, and despite having planned my modules way in advance, I've a feeling something will cock up and I've to replan everything (i.e. SE1101E goes for too high a price)
I hope I'll be able to get my ideal timetable, and that I can get back into the groove of studying too, amid the raiding in WoW too :/

(I never knew 'amid' was the same as 'amidst'. I've always used 'amidst'. But they actually mean the same thing. I found that out when @stcom tweeted using 'amid' and I went to google)


I've been thinking about something recently, about my self. What kind of person am I really? What do people perceive me as? If I was not me, would I like myself?
Yes, the self is a very unique concept, and is something we think about much more than we realize.

In psych, we learn that there are 3 general motives for wanting to learn more about your self - appraisal motive, verification motive and enhancement motive.

Appraisal motive
This is wanting to know truly what you actually are and how you are perceived by others.
E.g. Am I really a good singer? Am I seen as an easily irritable person?

Self-verification motive
This is wanting to verify whether what you think about yourself is really what others think about you too. I.e., whether your self-perception is in line with others' perception of you.
E.g. I think I am a kind person. Do others think I am a kind person?

Enhancement motive
This is wanting to learn good things about yourself to boost your own ego and feelings of self-worth.
E.g. Everyone is clapping after I have sang, they must think I'm a good singer!


Scientists say that the enhancement motive is the strongest among all 3 motives (and appraisal the weakest!), and we tend to be biased towards that motive and perceive things in that manner. I'll use one scenario to illustrate all three to make it clearer:

You have just given a little performance in which you sang 3 different types of songs. If:
Your appraisal motive is strong - You'll ask the singing expert in the room whether you sang well.
Your verification motive is strong - You'll acknowledge that you sang the first 2 types of songs poorly but your forte is the 3rd song, and you'll ask if people agree with this.
Your enhancement motive is strong - You'll ask only certain friends who always praise you for feedback.


We all enjoy compliments, whether we believe them or not. 'You are beautiful!' 'That dress looks so pretty!' 'You're really good at this!' Personally, I love them. And I think my verification motive is really strong.

E.g. recently in WoW, I believe that I'm a good healer, so I asked the raid leader how was my healing (when I knew my healing output was more than the rest already), and she said something along the lines of 'WOW! Bryan !! Sam!! (the 2 other healers) he heal much more than you all leh! And his gear not even as high as yours!! Ok la, have to give it to him, he's good'

HAHA. Head swell like nothing. But yea I did believe that I was a good healer (maybe not as good DPS/Tank), so I wanted validation for that.


But what's the point in knowing all these? why do you want to know how you are perceived by others? It comes down to self-presentation. What do you want others to think about you? Are you ok with letting others see this side of you? Do you want to be known as a ____ person?

And I realized that I am holding my tongue a lot sometimes, and just trying to mold myself into the person that everyone wants me to be. Often, I just want to be liked. I conform. I imitate. I mimic.

Which brings me to the surprising news today - I'm going to start a private blog!

Yes, it's going to be a more personal blog where I post all my rants and crap that I really wanna get off my chest. it probably won't be interesting at all, I mean, how interesting can a rambling person be.
Thus, it'll be very exclusive and secret, if you want to read it, you have to ask me personally for the address. I won't use names there, so there's no way you can Google to pick it up either.

After all, we all need an outlet.