Quick clarification question (sorry my J-ness is showing): the question is how do you know you're being honest with yourself or encourage yourself to be honest with yourself?
Sorry for not getting back to this thread until now. I guess I was more focused on how to know I'm being honest with myself. I think that I want to be, honest with myself, but if I actually could see the objective truth, my focus might shift to allowing myself to accept it.
[MENTION=19605]mingularity[/MENTION] I like what you said about suspending disbelief too. I'm naturally pretty open to possibilities, but like [MENTION=10496]skylights[/MENTION] said, I think my Fi ideals get in the way sometimes. I think that's why I crave outside input and critiques so much. I'm hungry for objective observations about myself. I want to know as close to the truth as I can. I also am fascinated by stories or characteristics of mine when I was a child. Like somehow, it's way to look into my purest truest self before I started getting all mixed up by life.
[MENTION=16139]Honor[/MENTION], you brought up an interesting point about being too aware of your own strengths and weaknesses to the point of blowing them out of proportion, which I can see myself as at-risk for. I can get kind of obsessive about understanding myself, and I'd really never seen any potential negatives to knowing more before you brought that up.
[MENTION=15392]AffirmitiveAnxiety[/MENTION], I have a tendency to want to keep the things I'm ashamed of in secret, sneaking or deceiving to do so at times. As I've gotten older, I've realized the value not only for myself, but for other people struggling with feelings of inadequacy in being more open about stuff that I'm less than proud of. It's still hard as hell, but I usually feel good once I manage to do it anyway.
[MENTION=12991]Huxley3112[/MENTION], that's a great list, and similar to the kinds of questions I try to ask myself when I'm questioning my self-perception. What's hard for me about other people's criticisms, is that sometimes it can be really damaging to take them to heart. I was told that I was lazy and messy a lot as a kid, and I really hated myself for that. I tried to prove I wasn't lazy by over-achieving and was either embarrassed of any signs of disorganization or tried really hard to put up a facade like I had it all together. But, of course, there was some truth to those negatively swung criticisms, and maybe the trick is gleaning the truth from the bias (i.e. I do enjoy pleasure and need breaks when working, but that doesn't make me less valuable. I might be messy, but that isn't some kind of heinous sin.) That kind of goes with what [MENTION=5109]Glycerine[/MENTION] and [MENTION=13260]Rasofy[/MENTION] were saying.
But how can you know the truth when everyone only has perceptions filtered through their own perspectives and personal biases and values?
I guess no one can, and that just has to suffice, which was a nice way for Huxley to conclude. At least we're striving for it I guess.