Ancient Wisdom

 

Nothing to Excess

Know Thyself

Certainty Brings Ruin

Nothing to Excess

Excessive appetites [addictive disorders] and excessive emotional reactions [relationship problems and neurotic disorders] are traps that have become part of your psyche as you developed through your lifespan. (To extricate yourself from such a trap you have to know yourself.)

Crises of stress or temptation are experienced differently from the first-person perspective of the actor than from the dispassionate observer’s perspective. Reactions that seem foolish to the observer may be experienced as compulsory by the performer. To act in accord with your interests and principles during a crisis you must know yourself from both perspectives. You can only acquire this knowledge by researching your experience from both the observer’s and actor’s perspective.

It looks different than it feels.

Your friend describes what seems to be a hopeless problem; you see an obvious solution. Your superior problem-solving ability is less the result of your brilliance than of your distance from the problem. Likewise, therapists often have a better understanding of their clients’ problems than their clients do— not only because of their training and professional experience, but more importantly because they are able to observe antecedent events and clients’ reactions to them dispassionately, from the observer’s perspective.

A psychologist studies the psyche from the observer’s perspective; a phenomenologist studies the psyche from the psyche’s perspective. To know yourself well enough to mindfully influence your life’s course you will have to utilize both perspectives.

Know Thyself

"Know thyself" is often ascribed to Socrates, but the Delphic inscription preceded Socrates by several generations. The remarkable 20th century mystic philosopher, Gurdjieff, observed that the "know thyself" imperative lies at the basis of many philosophies and schools of thought far more ancient than the Socratic. "Without self-knowledge, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave (to his passions). This is why in all ancient teachings the first demand at the beginning of the way to liberation was: ‘Know thyself.’"

Self knowledge is as hard to obtain as it is precious. In 1750 Benjamin Franklin, in his Poor Richard’s Almanac, observed: "There are three things extremely hard, steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self."

It is so difficult to understand yourself because your experience looks different than it feels. Subjective phenomena show up differently depending on whether you are experiencing it personally [that is, from the first-person perspective] or observing it from the third-person perspective as you might do when reviewing how you reacted during a crisis in hindsight. Indeed, anyone who has attempted to change their ways has looked back on their relapses from the perspective of a rational observer and wondered, "How could I have acted so foolishly?"

Certainty Brings Ruin

There are different ways this inscription may be applied to our time. Diogenes saw it as an expression of Greek skepticism. The Greek word skepsis means investigation. The ancient skeptics saw themselves as investigators. They also called themselves ephektikoi, ‘those who suspend their judgment.’

The Delphic oracle named Socrates the wisest of men. He insisted that if he was wise, it was only because he recognized his own ignorance.

While it may seem paradoxical
that Socrates said both: "Know thyself" and "The only thing I know is that I know nothing," the two statements together communicate a wisdom that is confirmed by modern physical and neural sciences. You do not see the world as it is. The feeling of certainty that you do is an illusion and is the source of the misery you bring on yourself and those around you.