The slippery self knowledge- From my book. 20.1.2010

The Self-knowledge of a Singing Bird

Another expression of denial of reality, which blocks self-knowledge, is denial of the contexts that we encounter as the following story illustrates:

On cold winter day, a little bird sat on a branch on the top of the tree, singing her lovely songs with great dedication. The blowing icy wind and the falling snow made it numb, and eventually it fell down from the branch. The numb bird was fortunate to fall down into a warm shit a cow just left behind. The warmth from the shit brought life back to the little bird, and being so joyful for being saved, it started to sing again. A cat passed by, heard the beautiful song, and rushed to the scene to appreciate this unfolding in its cat manner. He ate the bird and the songs as well! (Russian allegory)

What is the moral of it?
1. Do not sing when it is not appropriate to sing. When you sing as to end in shit, you must be a moron.
2. If you end up in shit, do not keep singing as if nothing happened. You have to use your wits to get out of it!
3. If shit has to save your life, oh, brother, you are in great trouble!

In many semi religious healing pamphlets and self-help books I have read through time, the appreciation of life and the positive attitude toward it is strongly accentuated. It has become popular, also in management courses, to talk about positive outlook as determining our lives. This view is only relevant as long as the reading of, and acting in accordance with, shifting contexts is a part of the “package.”
It must be idiocy to act happy and singing in the face of mortal danger. There you do best by being realistic, vigilant, and ready to fight for your chances. Self-knowledge based on ideology or cherished attitudes alone are not more than a sand castle!

Self-knowledge, the Golden Calf, and the Promise of Heavenly Reward

In our time, we have competing ideologies.
The first one is capitalism, which is basically unethical, immoral, and unsustainable, with its principled stress on economic growth, without regard to the future of this planet and it its inhabitants, and turns many people into senseless consumers who adore celebrities, sensations, and the merits of the “golden calf.” Especially its growth economy poses a mortal danger to our future because it is extremely polluting while being unsustainable.
If you look closely at the global consequences of our consumer ideology, you will realize by now that it is “short-term gain, long-term pain”. In the long run, unless modified, it will destroy us. It pushes our latent greed and competition for power and prestige. You cannot possess a solid self-knowledge, which imply not harming yourself and others, if you conform to such an ideology that, in its lack of long-term responsibility and its bending to the programs of the sirens of pleasures and social competition, brings the future of your children and your grandchildren in mortal danger.

Researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota concluded in a new report (18*) that the desire to buy things is clearly correlated to the person’s self-confidence. The more self-confidence, they found out, the less desire young people wished to shop. Their conclusion was that if we could strengthen self-knowledge and self-confidence in youth, they will focus much less on material consumption, which is exactly what I try to preach about. Yet there may be some more severe implications for their findings: can it be that one weighty reason for the lack of self-knowledge and self-confidence in so many people in modern societies is the massive promotion of material consumption as the formula of good life and being special? I put my bet on it.

The other ideology is the religious faith that advocates heavenly reward and expresses our longing for transcendental meaning and significance.
It stands for “short-term pain (on earth) but long-term gain” in heaven. Yet we know for sure that the heavenly reward is a matter of faith, not fact.

Self-knowledge built on assumptions that cannot be proved or verified is not what I consider as solid self-knowledge. Religious self-knowledge is collective, not individual, because it is based on dogma that is absolute and does not open for inquiry, explorations, and reflection over its premises.

Since we solidify or weaken our self-knowledge in accordance with the life view we choose to follow and such life view can be either destructive for us or speculative as to bring us nowhere, I assume that some viable, sustainable, and evolving life view would strengthen our self-knowledge much better than these two ideologies have achieved so far.

Self-knowledge Is Not Compatible with Focusing on Petty Details
It is true that there is an expression saying that “God is in the details,” but if God focuses all the time on petty details, He becomes not more than a petty shopkeeper.
So hopefully, God is in the essential details because otherwise, He will not be able to see the “forest while focusing His godly attention on the trees.”
Focusing too much on the petty details of life may often mean losing the great perspectives of it. Focus only on details without place for uplifting perspectives is a kind of stupidity, and stupidity and self-knowledge do not go hand in hand.

In a Danish novel written by Gustav Wiel, Livsens Ondskab, the writer describes a man, Knagested, who dedicates all his life to count the commas in known books.
This man looks relentlessly for information of this sort and teaches it to others. If you wish to know how many commas there are in the New Bible, Knagested will be the right man to ask.

We all know people who collect comma information in such manner, which is empty of insight or contexts. Such collection of information, if it becomes a habit, is like throwing seeds on the surface of a barren cliff. This does not promote self-knowledge.

Benjamin Katz, klinisk psykolog

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