When I was young, I really believed that it was me who knew me best. However, after more than half century, I am getting to know that I didn't know myself deeply. What I had known clearly was mostly what I wanted.
The support for this point is, but not limited, as follows:
- My blood type even drove me to act beyond my self-consciousness. After comparing with many same natured people, I got to know that we had the same blood type, based on which our tempers or behaviors are similar.
- My nature coming mainly from my parents could be the potential power which leaded or adjusted my mood without my self-consciousness. Several years ago I got to understand that the hardest thing to me was not changing the world but to change or control myself! And what I am mostly doing now is also to go on managing myself!
- Aggregated from the above two points and mixed with what I had learnt and acquired along with my growing, came my idea, my desire and my action. During this course, the living circumstance before adult played an important role in my life. The branded influence could almost accompany my whole life.
- .................
I don't want to say wordily here since I know smart people can understand me fully. I merely show this mind and share with people who really want self-consciousness and self-control in their life.
To know yourself is a very very long way to go.
Sometimes, we need a whole life to get the answer.
My father had told me when I was very young, and now, I knew his words.
i agreed with ur:What I had known clearly was mostly what I wanted
it's hard to know urself . And it's also harder to face urself after u've completely know urself.
oh, mankind is complex.
I guess your point is to have the full self-consciousness about yourself.
Well, I am not an expert in understand myself per se. However, according to my own experience, self-consciousness and self-abandonment are always co-exist in our whole life, just like the pair of flesh and spirit defined in classic Aesthetics. They are all human nature. Someone might expect the full control of him/herself and eventually turns into deeply self-guilty if he/she fails to achieve this goal. I would suggest a down-to-earth solution: just know the ebbs and flows of your mind and keep conscious about it. What I suggested seem like a meta-self-consciousness in psychology.
From this perspective, I would rather argue that to know what to do when self-consciousness is overwhelmed my self-abandonment is more important than to simply push the envelop to be fully self-consciousness.
According to great Sigmund Freud's theory, subconsciousness plays a role which might be more important than consciousness to human being. No one can escape from this regulation, no matter one wants to ignore it or not. I believe this totally.
However, what i want to say here is that even under this rule, I want to do something to control and manage myself. Thus, I want to know me deeply. I regard this behavior as my difference from a female wolf! lol. If you grew up during last century as me did, you might understand it better.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my own experience with you, other than to teach you young people. Anyone has his own choice to live in this new China, in terms of the open degree for personal freedom!
OK, I guess we are not essentially making different points.
The thing that is significant for a human being to become distinguishable with a "wolf" is not only the self-conscience alone[wolf knows about itself, I guess], but also the free will to make choices. We can overcome some shortage or difficulty and that makes us human. I am not trying to encourage abandonment here, I just want to make a point that "fully self-control" is more like an unnatural behavior (well, after all, I would say, at least for me). Again I guess we might discuss the same issue at different levels, but we don't actually make any substantial bifurcation.
Surely? we did not!