gnōthi seauton. nosce te ipsum. know thyself.
This maxim, which was inscribed at the entrance to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, has challenged and inspired thinkers and poets for centuries, appearing in the prose of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin and countless other luminaries, in addition to ancient Greek, Indian and Chinese philosophical texts. In more recent times, it’s the phrase that launched a thousand self-help books guiding readers to learn their true personality, find their purpose, create meaning, understand their brain, and so on.
I, too, have taken my fair share of Myers-Briggs like tests to ‘learn’ more about myself, but all of these have yet to tell me a single thing about myself that I didn’t already know. Whether I was born with a heightened sense of self-knowledge or I developed it over the course of my life is impossible to say for certain. All I know is that at my core I believe myself to be essentially the same person as I was from earliest recollections of childhood.
Cai Guo-Qiang.Transient Rainbow. June 29, 2002. Photo by Hiro Ihara, courtesy Cai Studio.
“Your expectation of something unique and dramatic, of some wonderful explosion, is merely hindering and delaying your Self Realization. You are not to expect an explosion, for the explosion has already happened - at the moment when you were born, when you realized yourself as Being-Knowing-Feeling. There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. ― Nisargadatta Maharaj, I Am That: Talks with Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Undoubtedly my tastes have grown and evolved, as have my knowledge and understanding of the world, but my core being remains fundamentally the same. As such, I’ve come to think of my ‘self’ or my being more like a piece of clay than a person to be discovered in the marble (a la Michelangelo). I prefer the metaphor of the clay because it makes space for the idea that the experiences and learnings of life have (and will continue to) imprint, mold and shape the clay – in both positive and negative ways – but the raw material remains fundamentally the same.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” ― Rumi
As such, my life’s path has not been one to learn who I am, per se, but instead to nurture and cultivate that which I deeply value – spirituality, acuity, curiosity, community (relationships), empathy, generosity, and so on – in myself. Every day, I’m purposefully and intentionally choosing to shape the clay through the books I read, the places I go, the people I spend time with, and how I engage in the world.
That said, I regularly fall short of my own expectations of myself – morally and spiritually – and make choices or behave in such a way that do not reflect the person I am and want to be. Recognizing and owning these shortfalls or lapses, in the moment or as quickly as possible thereafter, allows me to course correct and ensure that I’m not allowing myself, or the clay– to return to the metaphor –to be permanently hardened.
Pablo Picasso. Girl Before a Mirror. 1932
While self-knowledge, self-acceptance and self-improvement are all noble efforts, they begin to feel like self-indulgent pursuits unless they’re ultimately engaged in service beyond ourselves. For me, this means in the service of others and of the Divine. Nurturing and cultivating the best in one’s self is not simply about being the best person I can be, it’s about enhancing my ability to contribute to, and impact the world around me – even if only in seemingly small, but meaningful ways.
Thus, for me, the original maxim requires amendment.
Know thyself. Better thyself. Give of thyself.
“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God