Sane Hellenic Reconstructionism

Know thyself

I am given a commandment: Know thyself.  But who am I?  If I am ordered to know this rock in front of me.  I have it as an object in my hands.  I touch it, I feel it, I know its boundaries.  In coming to know the rock, I already in fact know it. 

            Well, I have my body, I have my mind.  I can throw my torso against a wall.  Does it make a noise?  Is it more of a Bam or a Thud?  Perhaps I try a different wall.  Yes it is a thud.

            I try counting to 100.  Yes I can do this.  I am a counting machine.  I count to a thousand.  I count to 32,234.  Alas, I can go no further.  But, this should not cause sorrow.  Though I can perhaps not count to 32,235, I have achieved something much greater, I have come to know something about myself.

            I am a citizen, am I not?  I walk into the IRS, and ask them for some records.  They tell me that I have declared 35K in income last year.  Well, that makes me lower-middle class or a liar. 

            I can now come to some conclusions for myself.  When I reach the pearly gates and approach the Lord and he asks me to double check all of his notes about my life, to see if he got them straight, I’ll have a few things to say.  First, I must assume that I did not count last year’s income, unless I lied about that income, I can’t remember, but if I did lie about my income and I could have counted my income then surely I lied about it to make it less than what it actually is, unless perhaps I was a better counter back then, or maybe I counted the first 32,235 dollars and then sent the rest to be analyzed by some sort of genius or whatever.  But if the Lord tells me that I counted my income and that I didn’t lie about my income, and I did all the counting myself, and that my counting aptitude did not decrease then I could point the Lord out for the huckster he is.  For truly, I strove in life to know myself, and I will not be falsely judged.

            Why else would one wish to know themselves, except under the assumption that we will be judged, and it is better to tell our defense attorney all of the facts.  But then again such an approach is felicitous only if these facts are not incriminating or one has the ability to weasel one’s way away from the most atrocious of indictments and filibuster one’s time on a few traffic violations.

            Another concern: will God judge me falsely?  Is it not a possibility?  He has so many heads to watch over.  I think when he looks over my more disgusting of sins, he must have the modesty to cover his eyes a little, and as such mistaken wrestling for something I dare not say.  After all, it was only wrestling. 

            I should know myself.  What’s the harm?  I don’t have to make much effort.  I simply must record my movements, my situations, the sounds of my stomach, and play them back to myself at night.  And once I get up there and I am to be judge I can be judge jury and executioner.  Wouldn’t that piss God off?  Oh, he wouldn’t see that one coming.  It would embarrass him, making him superfluous as such.  Perhaps he would offer me a plea bargain to spare him the shame.  Before he begins I have already thrown myself into the depths, content that justice has been performed.  And what if everyone did this, what a farce.

            Maybe there is more to knowing thyself.  Maybe I can gain new control over these limbs.  If I am a machine, maybe I could practice a little mechanics.  Now, how far can I twist my head.  On its own it makes it quite far.  But have you seen owls?  Is it possible that I myself, will prove that that is no such marvelous thing.  That when I see owls I can laugh at them for trying to lord that talent over me all these years.  So I push my head further around, just a little bit at a time, I am not a dolt.  I check a year later and see I too can turn a full circle, no more doubting it.  I know.

            So knowing is testing also.  But testing can be augmenting.  Well why settle for testing myself against those owl vermin, or some pathetic low-life who for some reason or other can beat me in checkers.  This pursuit to know myself, I must ask myself a much bigger question: am I master of the world? Am I emperor of the universe?

           I am not going to command the president to bark like a dog, or even threaten Bill Gates with a  hefty wind-fall profits, hell, for a while, I will even let my wife have her side of the bed.  But I am testing myself, I am breaking out of shell after shell, like a little Russian doll inside of other dolls who think they are so special.  Well how does one think that one became a big Russian doll.  I doubt that they manufacture them in different sizes.  If Adam Smith is correct, and I think America has proved that he is, the benefits of economy of scale dictates that all dolls would come out the same.  Let’s assume the same about our God.  Why not.  If he is so wise, how could he miss the general observation that scale creates economy, is he a Frenchman (communist idiot)?  I could go on with the French… but that should wait for later on in the discourse.  After all, I am pursuing a very narrow dialectic, and the intellect is always in danger of tangents, of becoming stuck, as Kierkegaard would say, in parenthesis.

            So where do I start, finding out whether or not I am master of the universe?  Remember this is a big question, and if I am to truly know myself it should be answered, because it will answer a whole host of other questions.  When/if I gain control over Washington, who will be the vice-president, well who ever I want.  If I am in a round of Jeopardy, oh they will fear me.  Not only that, I will control the question, e.g. “Who is to be the new host of Jeopardy next season?” 

            Moreover, I can control the possible questions, so I need not worry myself about the answers.  Asking myself if I am stronger or faster than a unicorn sounds absurd, where are these unicorns?  I can make a similar question about bears absurd, or weightlifters, or my brother, that is if I am master of the universe.

            As master of the universe, I will undoubtedly answer every question.  I will know myself in every non-trivial way.  I will know myself as Lord of All.

            Oh, back to the question.  I sometimes get carried away.  Where do I start getting to know whether or not I am truly master of the universe?  I will perhaps assert myself at the City Hall, for my neighbors dog defecates on my lawn and I do not care for it.  I will step up to the microphone and aver “I am the master of my lawn and I will not let it suffer this Greyhound.”  And soon I will not let it suffer squirrels.  And soon not Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses either.  Soon I’ll be complaining about my neighbors yard and the satellites crossing over my airspace.  I’ll be master of a good space by then.  I will slowly but surely extend father’s day past midnight until I have made it into a three day weekend.  I will tell my wife that the day is meant for the father of her children and not to be squandered on the phone with her Daddy. 

            I’ll make myself an empire, and know myself as emperor, which I had been all along.  And when other men look at me, they will say that I know my powers and that they wished they had known their own potential earlier.  For the only difference between them and I is that I strove to know myself and in that striving I made myself.  Wow, now that’s existentialism!!!

            But what if I don’t become emperor of the universe, what if my striving reaches no end.  What if it is a bad infinity, not the good kind.  Perhaps I’ll sink the other way, or I will atleast make some strategic retreats.  If I cannot settle once and for all how many pull ups I can do, maybe I will simply lop off my hands.  Why not?  If I truly wish to know myself my hands and my pull-up bar will merely bring me to despair.  Unless I come up with a clever answer, pointing to an old man I could say “More than that guy.”

            Well, I’ll figure it out.  How to become a handicap emperor.  When on trial with God, I will not only know what I did do, but also what I could have done, oh there is no room for judgment then.

            Wait, I had an epiphany.  Or perhaps it came slowly and I didn’t see it coming.  Or maybe I read it somewhere.  To know thyself is to become honest with thyself.  When I prattle off certitudes, perhaps I should examine them closer, see whether or not I am truly what I claim to be. 

            Let me try it.  Ok, I love my son. 

            Socrates:        What is love.

            Me:                  it is something ineffable.

            Socrates:          That is very deep, you are wise.

            Me:                  Thank you, I also respect your wisdom.

            Socrates:          Is God love.

            Me:                  Certainly

            Socrates:          Is your relationship to your son God?

            Me:                  No.

            Socrates:          Then it is not love.

            Me:                  Oh, your funny Socrates, you got me there.  I must hate my son.

            Socrates:          Live your life in this wisdom.

See if Socrates says know thyself, and he was doing that, and he thinks that I can do that, and we all can do that, well that’s pretty neat.  I can be my own Socrates, for I do know that I know nothing, that is unless I know something.  But if I do know something, then I do not know that I do know nothing, because it is false that I know nothing.  Thus, if I hold onto the principle that I know nothing unless I know something, I will always be correct.  And I will know myself, for that is the task, right?

            But its hard being Socrates sometimes.  He devoted his whole life to this quest.  I have a job, and not many friends who are of like minds.  I will perhaps have to make imaginary dialectical situations very fast.  I will have to be a Stephen King of sorts, pumping out epiphanies about twice a week.  On Saturdays, I will devote a good eight hours to thinking about myself and getting to know thyself.   No problem.

            Introspection is thrown around a lot these days.  They have dog psychiatrists.  For dogs!!!  A dog is supposed to probe into there deep subconscious and recollect a traumatic experience.  If a dog can do it, Socrates can.  I believe this whole-heartedly.  If a dog can get to know thyself, so can I.  For we all are little Socrates.  I think the powers of dialectic are even more intense than though of psychoanalysis.  Sigmund Fraud can keep his loony theories.  I am content with strict, cold contemplation.  Let’s see a dog do that.

            Let me expound upon a basic truth.  Opposites define one another.  If I am to understand what it means to be a human I must compare it to being something else.  I know that psychoanalysis is wrong for myself because it is used for doggy-truths.  Thus, human truths, completely incommensurable with doggy truths must be reached through something besides psychoanalysis, i.e. its opposite, i.e. Socratic dialogues.

Conclusion:

FACT: KNOW THYSELF

FACT: THREE POSSIBLE WAYS TO KNOW THYSELF.

1.      Recording of life.

2.      Testing your infinite powers

3.      Socratic dialogues

FACT: ALL SEEM QUITE POSSIBLE WITH PROPER TIME MANAGEMENT.

CONCLUSION: TO INSURE THAT ONE KNOWS THYSELF, ONE SHOULD CARRY OUT ALL THREE.