I know that small moment after sending a text, a message or a piece of work into which I have put a great deal of myself. In truth, it is finished. I have said or created what I wanted to say or create. And yet my attention returns to it once more. Has anyone responded? How was it received? Did it move someone, please them, convince them? What interests me is that the content itself does not change simply because someone reacts to it. The same text is still there, the same thoughts are written in it, and yet my own feeling about it can shift within seconds. A kind sentence from someone else can suddenly make me feel more certain. Silence can raise questions that were not there before. Moments like these have shown me how deeply the need for recognition can live within us. Not as vanity and not as a superficial desire for applause, but as something much more human: the longing to be seen by another person and to have our existence acknowledged.
The longer I think about it, the less surprising that longing seems to me. We do not begin life as completely independent beings who know their own worth from within. From very early on, we also experience ourselves through the responses of others. A look tells us whether we are welcome. A voice conveys safety or rejection. Praise shows us that something we have done has been seen. Criticism can unsettle us long before we are able to explain why. Human beings are social creatures, and for a very long part of our history, belonging was not merely pleasant but essential to survival. For me, there is therefore something very ancient in the search for recognition. We want to know whether we still belong. Whether our behaviour is accepted. Whether we are still allowed to occupy the place we have in the world. Even in a modern world where a disapproving glance rarely determines our survival, that inner reaction can still feel remarkably strong.
It becomes more difficult when recognition is no longer simply something pleasant, but becomes the measure by which I decide whether I am allowed to trust myself. I know this from my own life. A decision can initially feel right until someone questions it. A thought can matter deeply to me until it receives little response. Suddenly, I am no longer only wondering what the other person thinks of it, but whether I myself may have been wrong. Of course, other people can see things I overlook. I do not want to reject criticism or make agreement the only criterion. But I have noticed how easily the two can become entangled. A reasonable willingness to consider other perspectives can quietly turn into doubt about whether my own perception is enough unless someone else confirms it.
I notice this especially subtly in the wish to maintain a particular image of myself. Once I am seen as helpful, calm, dependable, understanding or competent, recognition can become attached to that role. Then it feels good to live up to that image. At the same time, an almost invisible boundary begins to form. What happens if I suddenly do not want to help? If I disagree? If I do not know something or fail to meet an expectation? I have experienced how quickly the fear can arise that not merely an action might be rejected, but something in me. Then adaptation becomes tempting. Not because I have no will of my own, but because approval creates warmth and rejection creates distance. Who willingly gives up the feeling of being liked and needed?
Our world today gives this need a very direct form. Recognition can be counted. Reactions, reach, comments and visible approval make measurable something that used to be far more diffuse. What interests me less is the technology itself than what it touches within us. A number can suddenly seem to say something about the value of a piece of work, even though at first it only shows how many people reacted to it. A post with little response can be just as true or meaningful in its content as one that receives a great deal of attention. And yet it does not always feel that way. I know that tension. The rational mind knows that visibility and value are not the same thing, while another part of me still registers whether something was seen. Perhaps that shows precisely how little recognition is a purely rational matter.
Over time, I have also seen that the search for recognition does not lead only outward. At some point, we begin carrying the expected reactions of others within us. I no longer even need a real person to judge me. I can already imagine their response. What will people think? How will this come across? Can I really say that? Does this still fit the image people have of me? In this way, a kind of inner audience begins to follow us everywhere. Even decisions that no one sees directly can be influenced by it. I find that especially remarkable because external recognition has then long since become an internal authority. I begin orientating myself towards looks that may no longer even be directed at me.
This is where I recognise much of what occupied me while writing I – Your Best Liar. For me, self-manipulation does not begin only when I tell myself something that is obviously untrue. It can start much earlier, when I give my motives more flattering names. I tell myself that I am merely being polite when what I really need is approval. I explain something as consideration when I am actually trying to avoid rejection. I claim not to care about a reaction and still keep checking for it. That does not mean, for me, that every kind gesture conceals a hidden desire for recognition. I am more interested in those moments when I can explain myself so convincingly that I no longer notice the hunger underneath.
I also find this hunger interesting because recognition can only satisfy it to a limited extent. If my sense of worth comes mainly from outside, I need that confirmation again and again. Praise carries me for a while, but the next criticism can unsettle it. One person’s approval reassures me until someone else thinks differently. That is not weakness, but almost a logical consequence of where I have placed my measure. The more strongly my attention is directed outward, the more my sense of self changes with the reactions around me. I have found for myself that inner independence therefore does not mean no longer enjoying recognition. I still feel pleased when a text touches someone or when someone values my work. It simply feels different when that pleasure adds something rather than having to create something within me in the first place.
Today, I am less interested in whether I need recognition or not. That question feels too crude to me. Of course, part of me wants to be seen. Of course, approval feels good. I do not want to turn this into a spiritual ideal in which other people’s opinions are supposed to mean nothing to me. What interests me far more is the moment before I begin orientating myself towards a reaction. That brief moment in which I still know why I said, wrote or decided something. Before anyone applauds, remains silent or disagrees. There, I encounter a quieter form of certainty. It is not always strong, nor does it feel unshakeable. But it belongs to me. And sometimes I wonder how different our lives might look if recognition were still allowed to feel good without us handing it the power, each time, to decide whether we are enough.