Above All Else, Know Thyself, Damn it!
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Attributed to a hand full of Greek philosophers, including Socrates, and inscribed at the entrance of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, the mandate, “know thy self,” is still as important today as it was circa 500 B.C. It is the main ingredient in the examined life, which, unfortunately, too many of us don’t live.
The two best methods I have discovered for getting to know thyself are offered by modern psychology. One deals with personality type and temperament based on Jungian archetypes. The other offers an understanding of the different stages of adult maturation.
Myers-Briggs, Temperament, Jungian Archetypes
If you want to find out your temperament take the Myers-Briggs test. The Myers-Briggs test is particularly useful for finding out what kind of work a person is most suited for. I wish I knew about the Myers-Briggs before I went to college and took off skipping blithely down my chosen career path.
The Myers-Briggs measures and categorizes a persons temperament into the follow dichotomies: extroverted-introverted, sensing-intuitive, thinking-feeling, judging-perceiving. The idea is that each of us has a tendency to prefer one mode of interacting and thinking about our environment, or another.
According to the folks at Myers-Briggs, “The goal of knowing about personality type is to understand and appreciate differences between people. All types are equal, there is no best type.”
Levels of Human Existence
Another excellent way to coming to a greater understanding of one’s self is to become familiar with theories of adult human development. It’s a fascinating field in its own right. My favorite one, because it is very straight forward and easy to understand, is Spiral Dynamics, developed by the psychologist, Dr. Clare Graves.
Graves, in his research, concluded that adults, as they mature, have the potential to run a sort of gamut of levels of consciousness/existence. The lower levels are ego-centric in nature. The middle rungs of development are ethno-centric. Higher up is a more world-centric outlook. According to Graves, we tend to hang out at one level or another in our daily lives. However, certain circumstances can cause us to temporarily, at least, reside in one or another.
The levels are from least to greatest complexity:
-Survivalistic/automatic/reflexological
-Animistic-tribalistic
-Egocentric-exploitive
-Absolutistic-obedience, mythic
-Multiplistic-acheivist
-Relativistic-personalistic
-Systemic-intergative
In his own words, Graves summed up his theory of human development, thus:
“At each stage of human existence the adult man is off on his quest of his holy grail, the way of life he seeks by which to live. At his first level he is on a quest for automatic physiological satisfaction. At the second level he seeks a safe mode of living, and this is followed in turn, by a search for heroic status, for power and glory, by a search for ultimate peace; a search for material pleasure, a search for affectionate relations, a search for respect of self, and a search for peace in an incomprehensible world. And, when he finds he will not find that peace, he will be off on his ninth level quest. As he sets off on each quest, he believes he will find the answer to his existence. Yet, much to his surprise and much to his dismay, he finds at every stage that the solution to existence is not the solution he has come to find. Every stage he reaches leaves him disconcerted and perplexed. It is simply that as he solves one set of human problems he finds a new set in their place. The quest he finds is never ending.”
Less a person be tempted to extrapolate a theory of superiority out of this, Graves had this to say:
“I am not saying in this conception of adult behavior that one style of being, one form of human existence is inevitably and in all circumstances superior to or better than another form of human existence, another style of being. What I am saying is that when one form of being is more congruent with the realities of existence, then it is the better form of living for those realities. And what I am saying is that when one form of existence ceases to be functional for the realities of existence then some other form, either higher or lower in the hierarchy, is the better form of living. I do suggest, however, and this I deeply believe is so, that for the overall welfare of total man’s existence in this world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of any society’s governing figures should be to promote human movement up the the levels of human existence.”
A person who makes it their business to know thyself gains not only an understanding of their own powers and weaknesses, but those of others. Knowing one’s self is also the endeavor of knowing others, and breeds humanity and compassion. Knowing thyself is not only good for you, it’s good for the world. Last, but not least, getting to know yourself is damn fun to do, too.
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Above All Else, Know Thyself, Damn it! | MadMikesAmerica
[…]Trendy man, with his lowered capacity for intuitive perception, is unlikely to profit from the contemplative life of a hermit in the wilderness.[…]
Buddhists laugh at this kind of stuff. They claim to have been doing it for many thousands of years. Westerners do like to reinvent the wheel on a regular basis and then claim discovery.
Really good read Collin. While teaching organization and management at Alabama I used to teach students about the Johari Window. It is an interesting concept in which there is four aspects to a person (manager): First visualize a 4 paned window with each pane labeled,
The open area- which is that area known to you and everyone else
the blind area – which is known to others but not to you
the hidden are – which is known to you and not to others
the unknown area – which is known to no one
The theory is that the more you can expand your open area the more you reduce the size of the unknown area. To accomplish this you share more of your hidden area with others who will, in in turn, share more of your blind area. This shared information becomes open information.
It is simply another way of learning more about your self and increasing communication skills.
It’s almost impossible to really and truly know anyone else, so you might as well have a crack at yourself, still a hard job.
I just took that test and now I wish I hadn’t. What a fine read this was anyway.
Intriguing.
I’m not sure how Graves escaped me in my studies of psychology–I may need to try to get ahold of some of his work. Thanks for the post!