Why Did the Self Become a Curse?
Self-awareness is an amazing human characteristic. Despite the remarkable things that other animals can do without a self, the capacity to think consciously about ourselves, plan for the future, and evaluate ourselves is exceptionally beneficial.
However, the ability to self-reflect led human beings to create a world that is so different from the one in which the self originally evolved that the self is no longer entirely beneficial. Self-awareness created new psychological stresses because it moved people from a hunting-gathering lifestyle that was characterized by day-to-day living to a modern lifestyle in which people invest their efforts today for uncertain outcomes in the future. And, our ability to think consciously about ourselves makes us worry a good deal about things that may happen in the future, sometimes ruining the quality of life today. Ironically, self-awareness allowed people to create a world in which self-awareness is often a problem.
Furthermore, because people can think consciously about themselves, they struggle with issues of identity, become preoccupied with themselves, and distort their views of the world to maintain positive, but biased perceptions of themselves. They also defend their egos--their mental images of themselves--creating a great deal of conflict with other people. Because the "little voice" in their head can be so troubling, they seek ways to escape the self's excessive chatter, and many of those efforts to escape the self (such as excessive alcohol and drug use) create additional problems.
We live today with a special mental ability--a self--that doesn't always work to our advantage. In modern society, the important benefits of self-awareness are entangled with noted liabilities that compromise the quality of our lives.
Of course, we can not go back to a simpler world in which self-awareness was less of a problem than it is today. The best we can do is to understand how and why self-awareness and egotism damage our lives and to learn ways of avoiding the curse of the self.