While it will soon be obvious that I won’t be able to “cover the waterfront” on this topic, I’ll do my best to see what’s going on under a few of the “umbrellas” scattered along the beach.—and try to see that you don’t get hit by a “flying metaphor!” In each case, I will attempt to be clear first about what is meant by—the “content” of—each area I will approach and, second, why it qualifies as important.
Let me begin with a quotation:
“If ‘know yourself’ strikes you as squishy, soft, fuzzy, left coast suburban . . . hippie-talk – like it used to strike me – then let me break it down and toughen it up for you. Because when you get it, it’s a lot tougher than the analytical subject-mastery, behavioral neuro-babble that is too often celebrated . . . today” (Charles H. Green. See Sources Cited)
Mr. Green poses an interesting observation, then promises an even more “interesting” task. While I’m not sure “break it down and toughen it up” is exactly how I would describe my approach to this well-known—if not necessarily well-understood—topic, I do promise my best effort to make some sense of it. I also want to acknowledge the reasonable question, “Why is this important enough to spend time and space in a series of blog posts?” and I’ll respond to that in two ways:
- Initially, I want to explore some points of view on the subject garnered from the medical community and from the world of psychology.
- Then I’d like to jump back to “the beginning”—including, but also beyond, the familiar connection of “know thyself” to Socrates—that is, where did the phrase and the notion come from and what is its history?
Once that foundation is laid, I will offer a “Common Sense Approach” (ahem, my own) to what it might mean for me—and for each of us—to “know myself.”
And so, let us begin. To state the general conclusion “off the top,” both the medical and psychology communities acknowledge openly and seriously the importance of self-awareness, of knowing yourself. They also agree that it is not a simple matter and that it is fair to ask why it is so important, how one even begin, and what it means to actually “know thyself.” Is it a real thing, or just something people say?
Now let me back up and summarize the approach taken by a medical group that raises the question, “What does it Mean to Know Yourself,” on their website (See Sources Cited). Their exploration of that topic addresses a number of areas.
- Consider our emotions, for example. We might believe, for instance, that we feel, or try to feel, a certain way about the death of someone close to us or to a friend, but when we actually find out about such a death, we don’t feel the grief we thought we would. But, then, when we encounter the deceased’s family, we are surprised that we suddenly “choke up.” So there was, indeed, emotion inside us but we were unaware of what would “trigger” it.
- Or with regard to our goals, we can easily feel pressured or confused about the future if we’re not sure what we want to do or who we want to “be.”
- If, as a part of our self-knowledge, we don’t clearly understand our strength and limitations, we might commit to something that we’re really not equipped to do or, conversely, feel inadequate to a task that we are actually quite capable of doing.
- Finally, these medical professionals posit the importance of knowing our fears and our attractions, and, perhaps more significantly, of understanding our thought processes and our beliefs. Because this, they argue is “how we make decisions, how we react, how we work, identify the cause of events, and how we see life around us.”
Now, as promised, let me turn to the area of psychology, with special attention to an article from Psychology Today entitled, appropriately, “Know Thyself,” by John D. Mayer (See Sources Cited)—a Personality Psychologist who co-developed the theory of “emotional intelligence”—which he begins by acknowledging that it is crucial to finding the direction we want our lives to take that we know who “we ourselves are.” He theorizes that one of the obstacles we face is that our self-concept comes from a lot of information that is tucked away in several “pockets” of our memory and which, borrowing from the cognitive scientist, Ulric Neisser, he identifies as the “procedural, semantic, and episodic” memories. He characterizes each of these in this way:
- Procedural memory contains instructions for carrying out the physical actions of our active, conscious “here-and-now self.”
- Semantic memory is the long-term repository that contains our general knowledge, for what Mayer calls our “global self-concept.”
- Episodic memory is described as the autobiographical recollections of specific events from our past.
Let me be clear that I have no intention to get bogged down in cognitive theory. There are almost certainly other explanations offered to account for the way that memory functions. I have wandered off into the edges of this hypothesis just far enough to make the point that (1) memory plays a crucial role in our attempts at self-discovery, at responding to the mandate to “know thyself and (2) using our memory to search our minds—or brains, if you prefer—for the kinds of information useful to our quest for self-knowledge can be a complicated and sometimes frustrating process.
Meyer notes, for example, that if we want to “truly” know ourselves, we have to confront some information that can be painful. All of us are fallible human beings who inevitably have memories of past experiences that we may regret—sometimes remembrances that are emotionally charged enough that we are tempted to focus so much on this “stumble” that we lose our sense of perspective as it is seen against the broader contours of our life. There is actually opportunity in such “memories of flaw,” one of which is to learn to forgive ourselves—something we sometimes find more difficult than to forgive others. The other is to use it as an approach to better self-understanding and an opportunity for change.
I also found some helpful reflections in another article in Psychology Today. Although the author, Anna Katharina Schaffner, is not a psychologist, she holds a PhD in Comparative Literature and is a literary critic and a writer who is interested in the medical humanities, cultural history, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, and mind-body theory. She is currently writing a history of the idea of self-improvement, which is contracted for publication with Yale University Press. In an article entitled, “What’s So Great About Self Knowledge?” (See Sources Cited), she observes that Socrates went even further than “Know thyself,” declaring that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
She mentions some of the same areas of our lives as the medical group consulted earlier when she notes that if we fail to be fully aware of our natural preferences, our core strengths and weaknesses, our values, and our hopes, we will find it difficult to develop and be in control of a sound and satisfying life.
In other ways she also echoes what we have seen from medicine and psychology. She notes that the path to self-knowledge includes, for example, analysis of our cognitive processes, learning from our fears, our desires, and our failures, and also emphasizes that the self-knowledge gained is the “necessary first step for initiating positive change.” Finally, she returns helpfully to Socrates, reminding us of what he knew well, that “a vital part of self-knowledge is also knowing what we don’t know and openly acknowledging our ignorance.”
As usual, I have gotten wrapped up in laying the foundation for the topic and gone on too long. Enough, then, for this post. In a second one to come at some point, I will jump back to “the beginning” and explore—happily, not fully or extensively–where the phrase and the notion. “know thyself,” came from and something of its history;
I hope you’ll stay tuned.
Sources Cited (so far)
2 Responses
I’m reminded, for some reason, of the Aeschylus poem that Bobby Kennedy quoted when informing the crowd in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, of the assassination earlier that evening of Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
until, in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom
through the awful grace of God.
One might substitute “self-knowledge” for “wisdom” in this poem, and in other places. Until we know how we respond to deep pain, and perhaps to real joy, it would seem very difficult, if not impossible, to know ourselves.
Looking forward to part two. Always thought provoking.
My, oh, my, what a great memory you have, my friend, and what a beautiful, touching, and anguishing piece of poetry to remember! I do recall Kennedy’s address on that awful occasion, but nothing specific from it. This, however, after all these years, will now stick with me, especially the interpretation you put on that penultimate line. It’s ironic that n Aeschylus’s play, Prometheus Bound, the demigod, Oceanus, comes to Prometheus to reason with him, and cautions him that he should “know thyself.” I didn’t reference this in the blog simply because I had to make choices among the many who have used the phrase. Now, of course–although I won’t backtrack–I’m wishing I had known this! Thanks, as always, for reading and for giving me something that moves me a step deeper. You are a treasure.