Is self-satisfaction and smugness the same as liking yourself? Feels like there’s a delicate nuance separating the two that I’m not quite seeing.
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No. I hate myself most days but I'm always smug af. The latter is a style of communication, not a feeling about oneself.
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Smugness feels to me like you dislike or look down on other people. Self-satisfied doesn't imply any feelings about others.
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1/ I think this is related to (maybe the same as) the difference between self-love and narcissism. Self love = admitting and acknowledging your flaws and still loving yourself. In addition loving yourself admits of and is strengthened by loving others as well.
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Complicated talking about this because there’s a sort of cultural pull/force that takes any attempt at a description of a neutral self-assessment and adds “shallow, selfish, narcissist” connotations
That said, IMO lots of smug people hate themselves, they “just” hate others more
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Smugness is an assumed (moral/intellectual/etc) superiority. It’s a fragile intellectualized argument to assure the self that its “good enough” by telling it that it’s “better than”. Smugness is a self-protective shield.
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I thought smugness was about a particular incident/occurrence and not a general state of mind.
Smugness is acute, self-satisfaction and self-liking are chronic?
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Semantics are tricky here.
If “liking yourself” = “accepting yourself”, then no.
Otherwise, yes.
I am using the zen notion of non-attachment to ego as the test here.
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