Self-enclosure in one’s own ego permanently blocks genuine connection to the other.
Evidence
It is the punishment of the individual who is his own prey: alone he cannot end his solitude; in erecting barriers around his self, he erected those around the Other: he will never connect to it. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 497
Categorization
- APHORISMS: Reads as enduring life-advice: the walls you build to protect the self are the very walls that shut out the other.
- XREF: connects to: Access to another’s being requires their self-knowledge, which is impossible; The For-itself becomes itself by negating the Other. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 775; The ego creates a constant mental distraction. — Dan Harris, 10 percent Happier, 267 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- The For-itself becomes itself by negating the Other.
#expands(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 775 - The for-itself becomes itself only by assuming its alienated being-for-others
#complicates(0.75) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 777 - The ego creates a constant mental distraction.
#exemplifies(0.72) — Dan Harris, 10 percent Happier, 267 - The ego boundary is a false hallucination whose dissolution brings relief
#qualifies(0.72) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 478