Quest for understanding oneself
History is filled with lives of extraordinary people achieving extraordinary things. Virginia Woolf (Modernist writer), Albert Camus (French-Algerian philosopher), Immanuel Kant (Deontological moral theorist), and Benedict De Spinoza (Ethics). These people seemed to have gained a certain level of knowledge of the world and particularly, of the self. To which they have eloquently shared to the world. A famous philosopher Socrates famously popularised, a philosophical commandment “Know yourself”. He believed that an unexamined life was not worth living.
“Why does self-knowledge matter? What benefit do I gain from it? What are its consolations?”
I often go through situations where meeting new people becomes a daily routine. As a common courtesy, people would often ask, “ Who are you, and what’s your story?”. Feeling like a university student solving a complex mathematical problem, my brain dives into a deep space of oblivion. Not knowing what to say, I respond based on anecdotal facts: full name, age, job, and hometown. I thought, what a mundane way of describing myself.
Carrying this question in my head, I reflected and asked myself on a deeper psychological level:
- What’s my passion in life?
- What character do I get attracted to in love?
- How do I respond to obstacles?
- What was my childhood like?
- What are my inner demons?
- What are my beliefs?
- Can I differentiate rational thoughts with impulse inclinations?
Experiencing and reflecting on the intricacies of life, answers to these questions get a bit clearer and clearer. A degree of self knowledge will bring about greater freedom and happiness. Self knowledge is not a set of formulas or criteria that one sets into, but rather, a set of abilities for understanding better of one’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
