“Know thyself” sounds like good advice until you try it—and end up down a rabbit hole, or in a hall of mirrors.
I mean, how many selves are there, and who is the one that’s trying to know the other one or the many? Are you (the observer) and yourself (the observed) the same? See what I mean?
Never-never land. Goodbye. Good luck. See you on the other side. Maybe.
According to legend, a certain Greek named Chilon visited the oracle at Delphi in or around the eighth century BCE and asked the priestess Pythia what was the most important thing to know. She replied, “Know thyself.” (Greek: gnothi sauton) That maxim launched a thousand debates and was engraved on Apollo’s temple.
KNOW THYSELF
I took that advice once. I reorganized the random thoughts buzzing in my head, adopted an ethereal vocabulary, and thought: “Now I really know myself.” Turns out, that was a joke.
I was a philosophy major. I once heard an hourlong lecture on that maxim. Originally it was taken to mean “Know your limitations” or “Know your place in society” or “Know you are mortal.” After that lecture I came to know myself as not cut out for that level of discourse. But I hung in.
During the Renaissance, the maxim was taken to mean “Know your body—what it is, how it works.” During the Reformation, it was taken to mean “Know yourself in order to know God.” As John Calvin put it: The knowledge of self and the knowledge of God are so inseparable as to be one and the same.
(Calvin said many less charming things. But let’s not go there.)
During the 20th century, the maxim was taken to mean “Explore, respect, and repair your inner self—buy books, attend workshops, get a psychoanalyst.” To know yourself today could cost an arm and a leg.
I’m a skeptic. I don’t believe in the inner self. I believe in taking care of the body that we can see instead of the inner self that we can’t. Somehow body-care is also soul-care because body and soul are so inseparable as to be one.
“Know yourself” is good advice. But here’s better advice: Know your neighbor or anyone else other than yourself, and you will know more about yourself than you would knowing yourself alone.
I didn’t make that up. I heard that somewhere.
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See Paula’s photo on the home page. Posted April 21, 2024.
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