Knowing yourself

[Terxpahseyton]

I think as with much wisdom, knowing yourself is more romantic cliche than wisdom.

Yes, it is important, very rewarding and often even crucial, to know yourself. But it is all in the how. It is entirely possibly to get to know yourself and spiral down into a destructive hole.
It is true. And misleading when not explained. As with much wisdom.

Here is my explanation:

Let's not kid ourselves. Your an absurdly complicated monkey full of layers. It is a chaos, man. So just diving into that crap won't get you far.
What you need is a compass. A guided tour. Not aimless wandering, while I am convinced that aimless wandering is still good when used more for recreation than.. finding yourselve. Because there is no yourselve. There is a jumbled mess of stuff too complicated and too fluid for you to ever get it. And even if you could - it is you. And hence, it is a task which is not only practically but even conceptionally impossible.
So yeah this is the wisdom taken literally: pure nonsense.
But you can feel a truth in there, and that is no accident.

Your journey of self-exploration is, when it gets serious, not about finding you. It is about finding what drives you and using it. That means you are not a passive observer. You are an explorer and conqueror. You are like the Spanish. And the 'you' is South America. And you are here to make it your female dog. But: This only works by exploring what really drives you. That factor is your external factor. The one you just take. Or just observe. But can not directly change.
Because that is your fire. And your fire can take you anywhere. But first you need to really feel it. And for that you need to really see it. And then you can tame it. And tower all that reason onto it necessary to make it functional.

Now I shall feel embarrassed for this post, as I feel is my duty. So was this post, I thought some minutes ago.

 

[Synobun]

I don't grok how you can say there is no "finding yourself" and then follow it up with instructions on how to find yourself.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Because, as I tried to explain, strictly speaking "yourself" is an endless library of no purpose.
But if you look with a purpose, you can find great things. The purpose to find drive. And I think the vast majority of people got some to find.

And is "grok" even a word? English is so confusing in its lax standards at times.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

And is "grok" even a word? English is so confusing in its lax standards at times.

Read Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. Grok is pretty widely accepted in English because of it.

 

[Narz]

I feel like you'd like Frank Yang's videos

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And is "grok" even a word? English is so confusing in its lax standards at times.

See the Wikipedia article Grok for numerous definitions of the word "grok."

It became part of the science fiction community's vocabulary in the 1960s, particularly when Star Trek came along (Stranger in a Strange Land predates Star Trek by 5 years). When Star Trek fandom became a thing, there were buttons and bumper stickers with the slogan "I Grok Spock" (no, I don't have either of those in my collection).

So yes, it's a word, but one that most people never encounter.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

LOL...okay, Stranger in a Strange Land is on the library of congress list of "books that shaped America," was the first SF title to appear on the NYT best seller list, is the number one selling title by one of the early giants of the genre, and has been described as a 300+ page exploration of the word 'grok,' ...but of course in the world according to @Valka D'Ur all of that is too obscure and it was freakin' Star Trek fans noticing that it rhymed with Spock that really brought grok into recognition as a word. The irony being that Spock, by his nature, would never grok anything.

 

[stinkubus]

Star Trek only ran for three seasons so it wasn't very popular in its own time, either!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I was really disappointing in that book.

I fully groked it but it wasn't as great as it's made out to be.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Your journey of self-exploration is, when it gets serious, not about finding you. It is about finding what drives you and using it. That means you are not a passive observer. You are an explorer and conqueror. You are like the Spanish. And the 'you' is South America. And you are here to make it your female dog. But: This only works by exploring what really drives you. That factor is your external factor. The one you just take. Or just observe. But can not directly change.
Because that is your fire. And your fire can take you anywhere. But first you need to really feel it. And for that you need to really see it. And then you can tame it. And tower all that reason onto it necessary to make it functional.

Hmmm...the image of conquest, of power, of control. But not of balance or joining or being a part of. Such an approach seems too one dimensional for my taste, but it is a path and even the circuitous ones will eventually take you home.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was really disappointing in that book.

I fully groked it but it wasn't as great as it's made out to be.

No offense, but you're too young to fully appreciate it. It was written as an interaction with a world that you didn't have the chance to experience, so in fact groking it probably came too easily to you.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Good to see that some ... discussion was sparked.
Will have to take a look at Stranger in a Strange Land. But yeah I am very used to such classics not quit measuring up. But hey, I love the song of the same name by 30 seconds to mars

I feel like you'd like Frank Yang's videos

Okay. Not sure that is a good thing. I'll check it out.

Hmmm...the image of conquest, of power, of control. But not of balance or joining or being a part of. Such an approach seems too one dimensional for my taste, but it is a path and even the circuitous ones will eventually take you home.

That was a nice way of putting it. And you are right, there is a certain imbalance going on. But maybe that is what I need right now. Still some walls I got to tear down.
But yeah good point that different ways can "take you home" (really like that phrase: take you home)
I think part of my problem is that I can be too emotional. But I think I need to tap into that rather than to merely get it "under control". That sounds to me a lot like making me less alive.
Actually, thinking of it, I think some imbalance is important to me to feel alive. Really, in a way, life is imbalance, I think. Unless maybe you are a monk devoting his life to Buddhist enlightenment or some such. Well I have been planing on trying to meditate and see what it does for me. Maybe that is a now missing ingredient in my outlook.
Do you do something like that? Or is it just your persona?

 

[Live trash can]

I must say that I did for a long time have a strong drive and at the same time a sense of self! And I think honestly, that even though I have gone through a lot, I still feel the self quite strongly. But I'm not the kind of fundamentalist that I was.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That was a nice way of putting it. And you are right, there is a certain imbalance going on. But maybe that is what I need right now. Still some walls I got to tear down.
But yeah good point that different ways can "take you home" (really like that phrase: take you home)
I think part of my problem is that I can be too emotional. But I think I need to tap into that rather than to merely get it "under control". That sounds to me a lot like making me less alive.
Actually, thinking of it, I think some imbalance is important to me to feel alive. Really, in a way, life is imbalance, I think. Unless maybe you are a monk devoting his life to Buddhist enlightenment or some such. Well I have been planing on trying to meditate and see what it does for me. Maybe that is a now missing ingredient in my outlook.
Do you do something like that? Or is it just your persona?

Thank you. I think life is mostly lived out of balance and learning to live out of balance is part of things. In addition, I think removing or diminishing those things that lead to large swings between poles is probably a good thing. I don't do anything formal like meditation or yoga, etc. I am not sufficiently disciplined for those. Being old helps you integrate things. I have been oriented towards eastern thinking for a long time (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism) and balance and needing less control (of outside forces) has been part of that. But you should keep in mind that many "out of balance" people do great things and accomplish a lot because of their imbalances and excessives. Their personal life may have suffered though. Know what you are looking for (goals?) and remember that there are lots of ways to get there.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Star Trek only ran for three seasons so it wasn't very popular in its own time, either!

Not long after its cancellation, NBC realized that Star Trek was the show with a perfect fit for the audience demographics in terms of what their advertisers were looking for. If they'd had that information a few months sooner, Star Trek probably wouldn't have been canceled.

That was over 50 years ago. For a show that its creators thought would be forgotten, it hasn't done that badly, even considering that the movies from V onward have been crap, along with Enterprise and Discovery. There's still enough fanfic to keep me happy for years.

I was really disappointing in that book.

I don't remember you being in that book, but I'm sure it was one of the better parts.

Fun fact: The version of Stranger in a Strange Land that most people know about isn't the version Heinlein wanted to be published. But the more edgy science fiction of the 1960s was still very new at that time and the publishers weren't ready to go with Heinlein's original manuscript.

 

[warpus]

I very much agree that knowing yourself is very important.

A bunch of years ago now there was a realization on my part that I needed to improve myself in certain ways that seemed core to my personality. So I sat down and tried to figure out a plan forward, so that I could improve these problems that I realized I needed to improve (in order to be happy in life, etc.) But I couldn't figure out how to even get started, because so many aspects of this internal problem seemed to be unknown variables.

Frustrated, I sort of blindly moved forward anyway, and through trial and error put myself in situations that ended up teaching me quite a bit about my inner self and what makes me tick.

I still don't really feel that I have an amazing grasp of who I am, but I think I have a much better idea of who I am not.

 

[Birdjaguar]

That's a big step forward.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Know what you are looking for (goals?) and remember that there are lots of ways to get there.

I think I am looking for a way to live with as much intensity as possible. And how to integrate bad swings as their own source of power. And how to use that way of life to reach my goals. What I am not looking for is a comfort zone. But yeah, that may well change in the future. Maybe it should, or even has to.

Frustrated, I sort of blindly moved forward anyway, and through trial and error put myself in situations that ended up teaching me quite a bit about my inner self and what makes me tick.

I still don't really feel that I have an amazing grasp of who I am, but I think I have a much better idea of who I am not.

I guess stumbling is the only way forward, otherwise, you move sideways
In general I think a vague goal must be to feel yourself. I mean in the end, it is all in the feels, isn't it. Intellectual thought can only help (and should be used, of course), but won't solve anything, methinks. To the contrary, I feel, it can often be used to hinder oneself. To hold sth back which maybe should not.

 

[Live trash can]

When I saw the title of this thread, I immediately thought of self-help and new age. I have involved myself in these thing for a few years. And I think one thing often is missing in these things, and that is caring about others. Care about your self but others also. What I think is that if you do this, the Universe opens up to you because you attract good things.

Although there are some notions of this in the main religion in the West, Chritstianity, it should become more expressed!

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I am very critical towards self-help stuff. I very often get the impression that self-help is more about making the seeker feel good, give them hope etc - in short that this stuff is more about appearing helpful than actually being helpful. Because to my mind - changing yourself is a female dog. And what it IMO requires above all else is brutal honesty. Just, honesty intelligently, or perhaps rather wisely, used. And that is, I think, pretty much the opposite to clinging to some supposed book of wisdom or some such.

Regarding reaching out - it is my experience and opinion, that if you can reach out to yourself, reaching out to others becomes immensely more easy, natural and rewarding. To illustrate: I think those with the biggest charisma - not stage charisma but charisma in private dealings - are not the ones who are "strong", but the ones who are vulnerable and in spite of that still strong. Basically, the ones who have mastered their own emotional being to such extend, that they can effort to let it flow relatively freely, even if it hurts.