Complex Numbers

Ya Think?

I've been saying something like this for years.

https://theoutline.com/post/7142/be-yourself-is-terrible-advice?zd=2&zi=g32iywmn...

“Be yourself” is terrible advice
Take a better lesson from philosophy and me, a reformed loudmouth

Mostly, what I've said has been along the lines of, "Don't be yourself. Be what you want to be, and eventually that will be you." That and, "Be Batman."

Some great advice I once got was “Be less yourself.” This was in 2016, a couple of months after I left the Gawker website in part because I live-tweeted a meeting during which my boss hit his head on a lamp.

"Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?"

“Be yourself” is the kind of empty self-help mandate uttered by such disparate artists as Audioslave and Oprah; something that that is typically (and ironically) advised before coming into contact with strangers.

Coincidentally, I'm not a fan of either of those.

Luckily for everyone, I started going to therapy, and it was during one of my first few sessions that my kind therapist who gives me all of my article ideas told me that the consequences that came from what I thought was “being myself” could be avoided simply by not being what I thought was “being myself,” mostly because the former self was a huge asshole.

The single most constant fact of life, apart from death and taxes, is that people change. You can direct that change to improve yourself, or you can let it happen and who knows where that's going to go?

The first problem with it is that it is an impossible task: a holistic self does not exist; we are made of many selves that are revealed through endless experimentation and self-examination.

I didn't know I liked beer, for example, until I tried it. Until that point, I wasn't "a beer drinker."

The second problem is that today’s popular notion of the self mistakes feelings and desires for self-knowledge. Heidegger thought (extremely roughly) that knowledge of one’s authentic self could be found through the consideration of our own mortality: that feeling you might get after you have a near-death experience.

It is impossible to read anything attributed to Heidegger (or several other thinkers) without thinking of "Bruce's Philosophers Song" from Monty Python.

Hey, if it's stuck in my head, it needs to be stuck in yours as well.

Wittgenstein took a more social approach to self-discovery.

Him, too.

The author goes on to write some self-indulgent claptrap about having a dog.

Oh my god, is this me now? Am I a horrible, treacly, sentimental dog person?

Yes. Own that shit.

Heavens no.

You have learned nothing, grasshopper.

My friend John, who graciously explained a lot of Heidegger to me in the process of writing this article so if I’m wrong about any of it please blame him, said: “Ask yourself periodically, is this who I really wanna be?”

And she's still not owning her shit.

So there you have it: “Be yourself” is terrible advice. Especially if you are a jerk, but probably even if you are not.

Self-centered writing style aside, she makes some good points. It takes a bit of humility to recognize when you're wrong and other people are right. My own takeaway from this? Don't be so damn sure of yourself.

Of that, I'm certain.