Know thyself . . . or not

The idea of self-differentiation has within it the hint of the idea of the necessity to “know thyself.” Evidence of this is the emphases on achieving insight into how we got to be who we are (family of origin work) and understanding about what we are working on becoming—being clear about values, beliefs, principals, etc. The unspoken assumption here may be that the more we “know ourselves” the more capacity we have to move toward self-differentiation.

The dilemma we all face is that “self-understanding” seems such an elusive enterprise, with the return on investment seemingly on the short side, even for those committed to pursuing the examined life worth living. Additionally, we are promised that in terms of self-differentiation, the best we can hope for on any given day is to achieve “70%” at any given moment, perhaps while in the grips of an episode of “peak experience,” or of “flow” or “in the zone.”

Even the new wave of neuropsychology may not provide as much promise for achieving ultimate enlightenment, suggests Theodore Dalrymple in a recent article. I suspect he is right on several scores. For one thing, we are beginning to appreciate that self-understanding may have less to do with rationality as with emotional process. The delightful paradox in that is that one may be limited in understanding the other. In other words—the rational mind and thinking process can never fully “understand” the emotional process; and the emotion cannot fully “intuit” the rational. This is not a new thought. Bridging the divide between the mind and heart has always been a point of struggle for secular and religious thinkers and philosophers (“My heart cannot embrace what my mind cannot accept,” and vice-versa. Or, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?”).

Dalrymple concludes his article:

“Hume was simultaneously a figure of the enlightenment and the anti-enlightenment. He saw that reason and consideration of the evidence are all that a rational man can rely upon, yet they are eternally insufficient for Man as he is situated. In short, there cannot be such a thing as the wholly rational man. Reason, he said, is the slave of the passions; and in addition, no statement of value follows logically from any statement of fact. But we cannot live without evaluations.

“Ergo, self-understanding is not around the corner and never will be. We shall never be able seamlessly to join knowledge and action. To which I add, not in any religious sense: thank God.”

Where does that leave us? Remaining all too human, I suppose. And perhaps with the confession that while any goal of attaining full enlightenment of self-understanding is an impossible one to attain, the effort is its own reward.

And that brings this poem to mind:

Reason

…Finally, what is Reason ? You have often asked me ; and this is my answer :–

Whene’er the mist, that stands ‘twixt God and thee,
Sublimates to a pure transparency,
That intercepts no light and adds no stain–
There Reason is, and then begins her reign !

But alas !

–`tu stesso, ti fai grosso
Col falso immaginar, sì che non vedi
Ciò che vedresti, se l’avessi scosso.

[You yourself blind yourself
With delusion’s dream, so you do not see
What you’d see if you had shaken it off.]

–Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.”