So self aware, so full of shit

Humans have a unique ability to split in two and both act and stand back to watch themselves acting – and it is out of this division that reflexivity emerges. But the sickness that is excessive self-consciousness lies in an inability ever to fuse together the separation of viewer and viewed, the inability ever to engage in an activity and at the same time forget one is engaged in it. It's like the cartoon character who quite happily runs off a cliff and does not fall until the moment when he becomes self-conscious that there is no ground beneath him – at which point he shoots down to his death. How lucky the spontaneous person appears next to the self-conscious one, free as they are of the subject/object separation and of the lingering sense of a mirror or third eye forever questioning, evaluating or simply watching what the central self is doing.

[de «Essays in Love», Alain de Botton. O título é de «Come Undone», Robbie Williams]