Truly Terrible Advice: Find Your "True Self" and Be Authentic | Michael Puett | Big Think
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- Опубликовано: 10 окт 2024
- Truly Terrible Advice: Find Your "True Self" and Be Authentic
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Aristotle said, "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." He is, of course, not the only thinker in history with this opinion. Socrates's famous dictum to "know yourself" speaks to a deep cultural trend in which self-examination, and perhaps fidelity to what one finds, is paramount. The aphorism "Unto thyself be true," is frequently attributed to Shakespeare, rather than the pompous, pontifical character of Polonius who speaks the words.
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MICHAEL PUETT:
Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. He is the author of The Ambivalence of Creation: Debates Concerning Innovation and Artifice in Early China and To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China, as well as the coauthor of Ritual and its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. In 2013, he was awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Michael Puett: We tend to think we know what the good life is. So we tend to think basically to lead a good life you should look within, try to find yourself, find your true self and then spend your life being as sincere and authentic to that true self as you can. And if you do that the idea is you’ll live life on your own terms and sure you can’t control what will happen to you but at least you’ve lived your life as you were meant to live it and you’ll be true to yourself. Now that sounds great except suppose that all of it is wrong. Suppose as our philosophers here would say we’re a very, very messy selves. And we’re messy selves that fall into these patterns of responses in the world. And therefore what you’re finding when you look within are just these sets of patterned responses that you’ve fallen into. Now if that’s the problem that we face as humans then the notion of flourishing is very different. The way to live a flourishing good life is by breaking these patterns and creating worlds within which you and those around you can flourish. That’s a good life. And you’re not going to do it by looking within and finding yourself because again you’re probably just going to hit a bunch of patterns you’ve fallen into. And you’re focusing also on yourself whereas if we are patterned creatures much of what we are depends on these patterns we’re falling into with those around us. So the good life for these philosophers would mean you’re trying to create worlds within which you and those around you can flourish at a mundane level.
So immediate friendships, family at a larger societal level too. And that’s constant work. The idea is it’s constant work, working through these patterns we’re falling into, altering these patterns, breaking these patterns, creating different patterns and it’s an endless work of every situation from the very mundane to the very, very large scale of constantly trying to shift these patterns for the better. And the vision is that and really only that is what the good life is. The good life is a world in which as many of us as possible, ideally everyone is flourishing. And you’ll never get there but it’s a lifelong process of ever trying to create worlds within which we can flourish.
One of the ideas these philosophers will talk a lot about is to train spontaneity. This may seem like a total oxymoron. I mean we tend to think spontaneity means simply breaking from convention and doing whatever you want to do. But they would say even if you do that that will always be momentary and then you have to return to the conventions and the conventions are unchanged. So what they will rather say is think of spontaneity something like learning a musical instrument or learning a sport. Something that takes incredible amounts of training but the goal at the end of the training, let’s say playing a piano, the goal at the end of that is to reach a point where you can play as they would say spontaneously. Sensing the music, sensing the mood of the room, sensing how to shift how you’re playing a piano to shift the atmosphere around you. Something you can only achieve by years and years of training. Now we know that sort of thing works for piano playing or sports but what if we actually thought of our lives or our organizations we’re working in in the exact same way. So what you’r...
For the full transcript, check out bigthink.com/v...
As the Buddha found out 2400 years ago, when you become obsessed with some arbitrary concept of Self, you just create problems for yourself. Seeing that there is no such fixed solid self is liberating.
Like the saying goes, "people are dynamic, characters are static"
also shankaracharya, vashishta,
Training and growing yourself instead of being limited to a potentially dysfunctional self. And therefore being a dynamic human being. That's my takeaway and why I like this.
Like Rose Quartz said, as a human you constantly can invent who you are. I love that.
Dysfunctional self. in my opinion normal is what we are accustomed to expect. A structure of metal encasing an engine may not be expected to fly the skies but a plane does. So a plane is a dysfunctional metallic structure encasing an engine.
Change is the only constant. Are you the exact same person you were yesterday? Our notion of the "self" is constantly in flux. I enjoyed his perspective on interacting with other people on a day-to-day basis; we can all help each other improve. No one is perfect (or even normal), in contrast to society's expectations of the individual.
Yeah, i think it's more about finding a balance.
What i've learned from meditation and wu-wei so far, is that it's more about learning to accept yourself and everyone else as who they are, flawed, yet still interesting either way.
So the tricky part is accepting things for what they are, yet still wanting to see it getting better, i guess.
You are not necessarily wrong, you are not necessarily flawed. You're just not responding to your world at your best. That's what always needs to be worked on. so just focus on integrating your controllable self with the uncontrollable world If you find you're flawed or wrong in the process, all the better to fix it.
I think this is all a matter of perspective, honestly. Because it would not at all be difficult to frame being authentic as a needed pre-requisite for finding these unhealthy patterns, and knowing how to avoid them.
and also you could just describe being authentic as being aware of your problems and being willing to work though them, witch would achieve the exact same goal that you're saying being authentic would not be helpful for.
It's rather telling, honestly, when the first example you jump to when describing ways that this sort of philosophy might be implemented is the office space.
I do not live my day to day life in an office space. So I intend to continue being introspective and and open about myself so that the people who I communicate with on a daily basis can respond to as much "me" as possible. And if things still go wrong, then we will work it out together.
I agree. I perceive myself as authentic and try to use that in a constructive way. I criticize myself fairly and objectively and I think that's part of being authentic.
I would assume a majority of people do not care for criticism, and are especially hesitant on criticizing themselves. People often have a hard time objectively understanding their flaws.
Personally, I love being wrong. That's something I learned. But this spreads to all areas of life, not just on a scale concerning factual information.
I agree. Well said!
I believe his point is that - when you frame it as finding your true self, it carries with it connotations which assume that it is something that is already there. That this perfect self already exists inside you, and if only you could unlock it you would be happy and prosperous.
Examples of this way of thinking would be psychonauts who try to find answers by taking lsd or dmt and finding their true selves.
That way of framing things might be good for your self esteem in the short term but - to use your example, when other people are involved and you need to work together, if you believe that you are closer to your true self than they are then you will be more prone to becoming defensive and attached to your ideas.
Instead if we assume that there is no all-knowing inner consciousness, but rather that we can all be essentially good by shaping our habits to benefit ourselves and those around us, it frames the search to both inner and outer. 'How can I make myself better?' and 'How can I improve this situation?" or the situation of another in life or anything else.
I found the idea somewhat compelling so I thought I'd share what I thought.
It's more along the lines that being authentic for some people is a bad thing to do. Or in other words, being truthfully wrong and being okay with it.
"Examples of this way of thinking would be psychonauts who try to find answers by taking lsd or dmt and finding their true selves."
Anyone who takes these things for that reason is in for a big surprise.
This is a great way of thinking and perspective.
I've always had a very similar approach to this. Finding your "inner self" is pointless, as our "inner self" is just what the outside world around us has created since we are responding to it. So we should manipulate each our of responses to our patterns and live a better more fulfilling life.
Example: If you always react to a car cutting you over with anger and road rage, learn to react to it in a much more calm and peaceful manner.
Was doing this yesterday. Walked into a store, and then out loud, said a purposefully ambiguous, word-salad of a sentence, while at the same time was doing random but chosen movements with my body, for the purpose of doing something that likely no one or thing had ever done before.
Did it grow you or the world around you for the better?
Sn0wflak3 Yes. It keeps reminding me to be creative in my thinking and be open to things I'm not yet aware of.
Good point. Plus it trained you to not be afraid of acting a bit weird
in public. I personally practice a form of bioenergetics before falling asleep, it's basically the same thing but combined with relaxation exercises.
I think I understand and agree with what the guy is saying....
The self is something that is in constant fluctuation and adaptation, with every interaction, with every thought, consciously and subconsciously. We create, destroy, interlink and branch out neural pathways by default. Our minds are plastic in nature. Saying that there is a "true self", is like saying that there is an optimal static state of self... which could be called nirvana, or enlightenment maybe. The "true self" is nothing more than a egotistical romantic notion.
Instead of looking for true selves, we should be looking to be selfless. I think this is also a romantic notion, but a noble one.
Romanticizing ideas of selflessness will ultimately lead to destruction of civilizations. And has.
I would love for the world to flow where these naive thoughts could come true, but I do not think humanity is close to that era yet.
Rex x When has it specifically led to the destruction of civilizations? That would be interesting to know.
Well, I would call attention to the negative aspect of this problem. Childhood trauma tends to create adults who can't acknowledge their own feelings and act on them. They are left with masks that represent the expectations that others have for them, which leads to addictive behavior and self destruction, as nothing they do feels authentic.
At the very the least, the "true self" is being connected to your own emotions and experience and trusting your own ability to see the world.
I think increasing your connectedness to the world so that you and others can flourish is better than selfishly finding your true self and living a life staying true to that. I myself know somebody in a situation that he feels untrue to what he really wanted (He wants to become a veterinarian). As therapy for not having that dream, he had been learning other languages (spanish, mandarin). Watching this video feels validating for his choices. Just like what he speaker said, "train spontaneity". 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
I wanted to hate this but it's logically laid out and makes sense.... got to journal lol
i don't think it is actually possible to be inauthentic in your actions or thoughts, only things that require forethought (which of course would include some actions) could be considered inauthentic, and it is a bit subjective because in most cases the authenticity of an action or statement can only be determined in retrospect, and even then frequently it was authentic to start with. authenticity is just too nebulous to label beyond "subjective"
Be true to yourself no matter what because in the end that is all that matter.
Very well put metaphor for the piano player, I naturally think like this and assume everyone does, but apparently not everyone does, this makes me sad and feel a little alone but glad he made this video to educate some folks!
Your awareness is experiencing all of the patterns of this physical world. By all means, break and change patterns to have a better quality experience.
He makes such strong assumptions about the nature of consciousness that are not only unknown but are actually not what happens when you actually go within, you find peace there, and it's hard to explain but from a place of peace you can be more of yourself because you are not worried what others will think of you and thus you go by your own in-sight instead of more a culturally conditioned perspective.
"Being yourself gets in the way of your better self." - someone said.
To be spontaneous, but not predictably spontaneous. To alter patterns on a fixed schedule is as dangerous as not altering them at all. On all levels, the rate of change, changes.
"All things change in a dynamic environment. Your effort to remain who you are is what limits you." - The Puppet Master, Ghost in the Shell
I don't like my true self. I'm working towards an ideal version of myself.
What if your true self is to try and improve yourself ? I guess true self doesn't have a meaning and you give it the meaning that pleases you.
Kavriel bingo
isn't your true self the one that will be once you have resolved most of your traumas?
The self does not exist. It's an illusion, you make it into whatever you want it to be.
There is a voice however that rationalises why you do what you do. It'll be saying the same things over and over again.
If you are lucky the voice says things that help you. If not, the voice might hurt you in your quest.
No matter what: the voice always lies. If you listen to the voice, you'll learn nothing. If you examine it, you might. By questioning what it says, by engaging it, you might be able to change it. Then the voice is something you remade. It'll do the exact same thing as before. Hopefully now it is something more useful.
Gonzo the great
you missunderstand my words
I've been going through this while battling economic crisis, imprisonment, chronic homelessness, metastatic terminal illness, mental, emotional, physical, and social obstacle course challenges...
I'm about to make it to forty years of age and have never had much to call my own, especially in regards to a home or automobile. I'll most likely be dead before I ever see anything like that. About a few years, or less.
So, it's nice to get a motel room once a month for a day or two and eat some of my favorite comfort foods... 😉 😜
Best of luck man, wish you the best
THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT
Most human are naturally compassionate.
What you are saying is right, I would say. At least what you say about patterns and stuff. But being yourself doesn´t mean accepting patterns. In many cases it means the opposite. Being yourself means knowing the features of you own character and all that is connected with that. Patterns (not nessesarily patterns in comunication) are often even used to avoid facing the own character or desires. Let´s take an example, where people would probably use this sentence "just be yourself". (And I am taking deliberately and situation that sounds like a bad highschool film). A girl is actually not very interested in wearing stylish clothes, using make-up, showing skin. No she feels indeed very uncomfortable when doing so. This is how she is.
But then there is cultural pressure, peer group pressure, maybe their parents tell her she should look more like a girl or she wants to impress a boy. Therefore she changes what she looks like, starts showing skin, using make-up and so on. So she fits in her sourrunding a lot bether but acting against her actual desires and not following her character creates an inner tension (in extrem leading to mental problems). So realising, what she wants, likes and "who she is" and as a consequence "being herself" would be extremly important in this situation. (I used this very cliched example because everybody probably knows something similar form TV shows, movies or whatever).
In this case following her character would mean to stop doing what others want from her. It would mean to break patterns and be true to herself and others! Because this is another important point. Only if you are authentic to yourself you can have authentic and meaningful relationships. This is of cause a psychological and not a philosophical ponit of view but what I want to say works for both disciplines: being yourself does neither nessesarily mean being selfish nor remaining in old patterns. In fact I believe it can be a source to do exactly what you discripe: breaking patterns and learning to contact with other people in a bether way.
Well said. You made me think of one could have convinced Hitler to change his patterns and behave like Gandhi.
I wonder if the self is a pretty compelling pattern or just a ho hum response to our surroundings that we can train ourselves to change.
Word games. Semantics. Of course a part of flourishing as a human being is a social dynamic, of course being an authentic human we adapt for survival in a world of variables(ultimately), arguing inbetween these two concepts isn't worthwhile- cmon Bigthink
Yes issues within and without... 🙏😔 So wish we all deal with it well and with our true loving light Christ and divine loving divine God source and in that true genuine loving spirit...
i feel like not everyones version of "flourish" is or could be forced to become the same. therefore everyone striving to create an atmosphere where "they can flourish" can become dangerous. some of the "flourishing" could come at the expense of rights/freedom/etc for other or be seen as an obstacle to their "flourishing". what it means to flourish or advance exactly needs to be carefully hammered out for said societies...
Just as you would be breaking patterns within yourself in order to stop destructive cycles and behaviors , trying to resolve such problems or dangerous possibilities in the world outside of you is just the same. Except you forget about yourself and live life trying to make it better for everyone else. When in reality, if you make sure to be aware of both yourself and the world outside of you, going within isn't a bad thing as long as you keep in mind that everyone and everything else is also going on outside of you. I don't think that the purpose of going within yourself is simply to find yourself and live life according to only what you now know is right for you, it's so that you can understand all of yourself in order to help everyone else while also having already helped yourself. So what I'm saying is, it's not all about just the patterns, it's about Learning HOW to recognize different patterns and how to solve them, whether within or without,for the better of both in the long run
love most of the comments.
stay positive
Don't just find yourself. Remake yourself.
Or trust yourself, accept yourself and be curious
I dont know but... His voice is so nice... I feel sleep....
The truth is our innocent self. The barb is true. We learn the woulds, coulds, shoulds. To find our truth our authentic self, constantly question why you believe this or that and be willing to let go of that which does not serve you. In a brainwashed world of constant propaganda, yes reflect, inflect and reject. Your truth is joy.
In most ways i'd agree but about if your innocent self isn't innocent at all ? I like to dominate people, be respected, be the leader, i have a slight sadistic side to me, should i embrace that ? Is that my truth and my joy ?
I feel like what you choose to keep and what you choose to reject, even parts of you should be about you, but also absolutely about society as well.
+Kavriel a sadistic side and a innocent side cannot reside side be side. Joy comes from purity of heart. What you think is you is the polluted you that you hold on to.
Thomas Sutherland Arguably we are at our most innocent as a child, and i was at my worst in terms of character also as a child, so it very much coexisted.
I think that Joy comes from pleasures, happiness comes from the peacefulness of the mind and the ability to appreciate the things we have.
And don't tell me what i think.
+Kavriel the innocent self is before judgement.
if you're teaching accessible transcendence, there lies a balance between what you can become and what the systems in place allow. the bridging factor is the others, they allow you to transcend and challenge the constraints of the systems in which we all are enslaved to and by, thus diminishing our humanity and increasing our ability to become more godlike. through transforming the systemic constraints, we are really more human.
when we attribute the qualities of transcendence to traits not readily available to every man and women, we are only offering shallow prometheusem. where worship of the speaker, fuels their power over the power of the message.
Prometheanism*
The issue is what one means by "true self." Is that doing whatever your cravings and intuitions demand, or is trueness of self found in becoming thoughtful, open-hearted, and disciplined?
Think bigger!
There is only the light of consciousness, the higher self beyond thoughts, beyond form.
The Path is a great book where he develops all of this ideas.
The self is an illusion. We are creatures responding to an environment in a more or less predictable way, just like we're supposed to. We do have consciousness though. This guy is right. Well being is achieved through reason.
And it all boils down to biology, and further, physics. What true amount of control do we actually have over life?
None truly. But the knowability of it all is as of yet so far beyond us that it feels like we have some control.
Dynamic patchwork ⚡💫✨
finding your true self is about growing into the best you and who you wanna be not just looking for some static "authentic" self within. what he said abt getting people to connect is just wrong. studies show open floor plans like he discribe are the least productive. the best performing groups are those with abt an equal amount extroverts and introverts who are allowed time alone to work and then time to come together on their own terms. trying to monitor employees and encourage bonding doesnt help.
The major flaw with this argument is that he believes looking within comes without a process of self-evaluation (which it almost certainly requires). This self-evaluation and exploration inherently causes us to evaluate our patterns of behaviours and alter them. Yes, we have patterns of behaviour... this isn't new the entire field of personality psychology investigates this very concept rather deeply. However, the idea that "finding your true self" is a one-shot behaviour that doesn't require constant work, evaluation, re-evaluation etc. is simply a ridiculous notion. I don't know how Puett came to these silly ideas (those summarized in this video), but I don't think many Psychologists or other similarly trained individuals studying these phenomena would agree with him.
He is being authentic and true to himself. Watch him..
Very interesting. Be sure to train yourself to spontaneously distinguish well between good and bad aspects of patterns you are modifying, much the way spontaneous piano playing has to distinguish between good and bad notes to play.
Depends on how imagine the self.
Soo good
the self is an illusion - read the Milinda Panha
next week on big think - tying your shoe laces..
Would ya look at that?
little things matter
Looks a bit like Rick Moranis
And sounds like Stuart Smalley.
He looks like one of Edwardbassmasters characters the 'phhhsss guy'' LOL.
lmao ahah
Doesn’t one need to know themselves in order to know the world they’d want to create for everyone else?
Just bee yourself
Your argument is based on a number of assumptions which are not self-evident: Assumption #1, Your "true" self is "messy." Assumption #2. If you "live life on your own terms", "you will not be able to control what happens to you." Assumption #3, when you look within, all you will find are these "messy responses."
So, what you are really saying here is that humans have no divine nature and all we are is a bunch of unconscious emotional responses which are destructive to a "flourishing life." I find your assumptions to be rather simplistic and dualistic. I think human nature is more complex that this and I think you may be overlooking other aspects besides limited fear based human psychological concepts... So, I present another set of assumptions which have worked extremely well for me and also contain your observations.. It goes like this... First we assume that our true self is a divine spark that carries with it a blueprint of our ideal flourishing life. However, along with this inner true self is a "human self" which carries with it limited "messy" survival responses. My theory goes that when you go after living the life your inner divine self desires, you will be confronted with the "messy" fear based responses and you will be given an opportunity to make a choice between following your true self or following your fear based responses. Those who follow their true self and evolve beyond their fear will flourish but it will be scary to the human self. This is the task of life. To follow our true selves and learn the lessons associated from evolving beyond the fear based human self...
You may have missed the first video with this guy, but he's talking about chinese philosophers's actual teachings, as opposed to what westerners think they taught.
Except that what he's saying is in direct opposition to chinese philosophy. And in fact what he is saying is extremely western...
ThunderWizarddotcom
He's an expert about ancient chinese philosophy. I'm fairly sure you're not. What he said in the first video Big Think posted was what people thought the chinese philosophers thought is completelly wrong and completelly western-made.
Were the first assumption you propose not such a major sticking point for me, this would be a fantastic response.
same
All i can think of watching this guy is bananas.
The speaker seems to have turned off his sense of "true self", and instead presupposes falsehoods: 1) we are disconnected, 2) we are threatened. He also seems to be addicted to "work." Instead, why not focus on play, like children, and feel safe and connected? Be still. Peace.
Oh, would you look at that?
a spokesman for a specific philosophy
- I'm not going to say he's wrong, its subjective ergo i cant, however this is not nor will be a philosophy i abide
In just short, just git gud.
I'm a platypus.
Guys, we've found pepe the frog.
yes yes yes yeeees . but . not entirely .
Lot's of people falled into a pattern of negative yt commenting :P
A snack for thought. Thank you. Do not agree.
whatever happened to the KISS approach to doing and achieving things? that, certainly this is not. .
I take the KISS approach, by rock-n-rolling all night, and partying every day.
For 2mn I tried to understand what u were saying wtf!
The baby is true.
+YaG AlonE not sure what you mean?
This guy is just a big mouth.
That's such an incomplete picture of the self! Does not make sense!
Hillary loves being spontaneous
we require more Dionysus and less Apollo