The elusive Self. Mixed media on canvas 40,6 x 40,6 cm by Shaharee Vyaas.
We perceive ourselves as autonomous, discrete individuals with an unchanging inner self that persists throughout our lifetime, but this is an illusion. Your inner self is a constantly evolving product of what you’ve done and can do. Your inner self isn’t made up by what you have been told by others, not as what you think of yourself, but by what you’re doing.
To know your inner self is to know how your actions corelate with your purpose, your values, your visions, your motivations, your goals and your beliefs. Too many people have severe misconceptions about their true self, mostly induced by methods and philosophies that involve a lot of navel gazing and hollow rhetoric. It even amounts to self delusion if you believe that what you think is more important than what you do.
The average garbage collector is doing more for the environment than most “Save-The-Planet” activists. They usually clean up the rubble that said activists leave behind after one of their protest meetings. Only those who walk their talk should claim that etiquette. Greta Grunberg is an excellent example, but has sadly enough a whole bunch of table jumpers surfing in her wake.
People are so full of self delusional thoughts about themselves: the procrastinator with the messy office desk who claims to be just a busy person, the adulterous spouses who preach family values, the vain and ignorant that proclaim themselves geniuses, the third generation welfare beneficiaries who deem themselves overqualified or unfit for the job offers they get, the greedy ones who think of themselves as just being frugal, the strong who exploit the weaker and believe they’re doing the latter a favor, the querulant vandal who postures as a seeker of justice, …
To conclude this post, I would like to share a limerick that I found very instructive. Following this pearl of wisdom everyone has three personalities: the one they think they are, the one other people think they are, and the one they really are.
