Know Thyself

When asked the question what is the most difficult thing in the world, Thales of Miletus replied, “gnothi seauton,” or “know thyself.” Naturally, to know oneself is not simply to know what shirt one is wearing for a certain day. To know one self is to take one’s soul and dissect it through introspection and neutral observation, and come to terms with whatever that confronts one in the process. To know one self requires honesty, insight, and above all courage, for it is difficult to discover our own faults and foolishness, and even more difficult for one to bear them. Yet, the reward for introspection is great. In Buddhism and Taoism, to discover oneself is to take the first step towards enlightenment. To know oneself frees one from a pure selfish world view and, in Bertrand Russell’s words, “becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good”—self-knowledge is like a full moon that shines light onto one’s soul, but when one stands under it, one bathes not only in the veiled warmth of the moonlight, but also the ethereal majesty of platonic truth.

I think I know myself pretty well, though I certainly do not claim that I am enlightened in any way. If I was enlightened, I would not even bother with the petty idiocies that seemed to always take hold of my attention (and by extension my life). If I was enlightened, I would find ways to correct my innumerable mistakes—and here is where I am the most frustrated. I know my faults, I always confront my faults, and yet, my faults always seem to get the upper hand over me in the end, leaving me humiliated and not a little despondent. My battles with my shortcomings have been battles against the many-headed hydra, for whenever I sever one head of evil another sprouts. Yet, despite my repeated failures, I still fight on, and I wishfully think that I could at least mitigate the problem with my efforts, if I could not eliminate it outright.

I do not think I have any qualities that could be counted as a “strength.” I think that strength is subjective. I may think that I am good at something, but others may think that I am really bad at it. I am good at something if it “works out” for me, that is, if something good arises from my actions. For example, I may think that I am good at, say, sports, but very few people will agree with my opinion. I could also think that I am bad at something like history, but many people think I am rather good at history. So what am I really good at, sports or history? Should I subscribe to what others think, or should I believe in myself? This question becomes more acute when it is juxtaposed with the question of knowing oneself. Could someone else know me better than myself?

It is difficult to compare how I know myself and how others know me because, in my opinion, the perspectives of the two are entirely different. No matter how I choose to conduct my introspection, I am still looking at myself in the first person, and I know my own feelings and my thought process. Yet, I could be biased when I look at things completely through my own lens. However, even though the only way a bystander could analyze me is through his interpretation of my actions, he could give a completely neutral assessment, depending on his involvement (or lack thereof) in my actions and his philosophical endowment. It is particularly difficult for one to assess himself honestly, because he is always limited to his own perspective. “Men willingly see what he wishes,” and he often chooses to ignore what he does not want to see, due to either vanity or embarrassment. This trait makes the advice and opinions of bystanders important to him, because they can see what he chooses not to see. Nevertheless, he is the only one that could truly discover himself because he knows himself more than anyone else, and he must find the courage to stand face to face with himself, without timidity. That is the only way for him to find the truth to himself, the only way for him to break his barrier of self that prevents him from attaining enlightenment.