Know thyself

Posted by admin on Mar 29, 2011 in Academy | 0 comments

Our modern age will define you in many ways. Ironically, none of these definitions will encompass you, but all will be used to generalize you. Here are 11 of the hundreds of ways that a modern human being understands itself.

Mono-theistic:
The self is created by the Great Self. To find knowledge of myself I must understand the Great Self. The Great Self has revealed himself through great men known as prophets, apostles, and teachers. In order to know the Great Self I must believe that each man’s words are his words.

Hedonistic:
The self is not unknown nor an enemy. Embrace the desires of the flesh and fulfill them. I have no guilt, for my desires define my morality. Nothing matters but the momentary blissfulness or forgetfulness that comes from the pleasures of this life. I know what I want and my only purpose is to obtain it.

Ethical:
I am the culmination of my choices. I have sowed thoughts, words, and actions to develop a character, which has developed my destiny. I find my meaning in my ability to adhere to the rules that I have either created or were created for me. I am not swept along by the winds of fate; I am a choosing being.

Nihilistic:
There is no self. Self is an illusion and meaning cannot be found. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes. All social, religious, and scientific thought is an attempt to make order out of chaos. Only through an embrace of nothingness will freedom from self be achieved.

Psychological:
I am not my conscious self. Psychology is the art of introducing me to myself. It includes taking personality tests, analyzing the effects of my past, and determining my subconscious desires. The being I call self is a deep, brooding abyss that I will never fully understand, but I will try damn it, I will try.

Sexual:
I am driven by my darkest desires of lust, controlled by the biological imperative to reproduce and my Eros drives. Rousseau argued that the pinnacle of human existence was orgasm and mankind has yet to escape that paradigm. For proof, look no further than a modern advertisement.

Artistic:
The self must be expressed. Within, I bear infinity that is a very solemn thing; the most significant events of my life will be the few moments I can allow others to glimpse that infinity. I find myself through symbol. Meaning and selfhood cannot be reasoned, it must be felt.

Economic:
I am a rational agent who will always pursue my own best interest. My primary motive is comfortable self-preservation. My greatest fear is violent death, and for this reason I place myself under the rule of law, to protect me from other selfish men.

Biological:
65 percent Oxygen, 18 percent Carbon, 10 percent Hydrogen, seven percent other elements. I am matter, the culmination of my atomic makeup. The nature of my life is that, for a time I reverse entropy, for a few short years before I begin to deteriorate and eventually rot back into the earth from which I came. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die.

Pagan:
The corporate self is more important than the individual self. I do not form myself nor do I have any control over my future. All of life is tragic and predestined by the gods or nature. Honour and shame are the ruling forces of life. It is honourable to accept your fate and dishonourable to fight against it.

Cultural:
I am a social construct, a being that is both creating and created by the relationships around me. My identity rests in my ability to effect and be affected by my environment. I am neither free-willed nor predestined; I am the evolution of ideas growing out of older ideas.