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Comment by s_m_t | Hacker News Reader

I'm skeptical of the idea that if we just looked deep enough we'd find our "genuine" selves. As if we were the representation of some platonic ideal of ourselves.

Also, assuming such a thing does exist, why assume it would be a good thing to find it. Reminds me of Rousseau vs Hobbes.

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I'm skeptical too. Keep searching for your "true self" and you may not find anything there. Like a hurricane, it has a name, a shape, tendencies, but can appear and fade away into material substrate. While we might say the hurricane has a personality, it's affected by the conditions around it (wind, temperature, etc...). We get angry when our life is threatened and we get angry when the ego is threatened, but was that upset ego you? Or was it a reflection of shape of the comments directed at it? Who are you?

Anthropomorphization of hurricanes is not exactly evidence that there is nothing at the center of human beings. It's simply an analogy and analogies are by their nature imperfect and inexact.

If that projection of hurricane weather phenomena appeals to you as a model for human existence, it may speak more to your own understanding of human existence rather than the reverse.

There appear to be some universal aspects of human existence: joy, hope, longing, loneliness, happiness, anger, melancholy. Needs for acceptance and belonging, external purpose beyond eating and excreting.

To say that there is nothing there at the center of our selves cannot be accurate, in my mind.

True self, is not some alternative universe you need to connect with, it literally means being true and authentic to yourself. Its your actions aligning with the values and beliefs you've managed to collect over your lifetime. When you meet someone who is authentic, you can just sense it.

I find you will have better results thinking about what has MADE you the way that you are, rather than trying to FIND what you are.

Learning about how my childhood has affected my adult psyche has been more revealing than trying to find some static inner "me." I think your "you" is nebulous and ever changing. I would go as far as to say relative and situational, even. But you can learn about your patterns of thought by reverse engineering them, both in real-time and historically.

If you do this enough you will find a pattern that you can define as yourself. Then it turns into a game of playing to that pattern's strengths and stress-testing it for growth.

I've always thought of "true self" as the intersection between:

  + Who other's think you are
  + Who you think you are
  + Who you actually are

If all three of those are in harmony, you've found "your true self." Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't think it is as simple as just looking inside and boom, there it is. Discovering yourself I think is a long process. I think it begins when you learn to quit lying to yourself about who you are.

I hate to go all "woo woo", but mindfulness was the first step for me. Getting out of the habit of blocking thoughts and clearing my mind has allowed me discover a lot about who I want to be.

I certainly agree with the last part of your comment. In my opinion, mindfulness and meditation, and learning how to stop identifying ourselves with irrational, uncontrolled thought processes are steps in the right direction.

Oddly enough I don't think people who have 'found' themselves necessarily have found some genuine self. Rather they've found something permanent and stable to latch onto. Given OPs thoughts about media/advertising these days, it could be said that we don't get enough permanent stuff to fashion an identity out of in mainstream culture. Part of the MO of advertising is always changing and building a need up for products. That implies a heightened impermanence to our mainstream culture.

> we'd find our "genuine" selves

Maybe think about it this way: what are your very _deepest_ values? The things that you think make a life worth living? That's starting to touch your genuine self.

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