Lughnasa Waning Green Corn Moon
“To find yourself, think for yourself. ” – Socrates
Gnothi seauton, written over the door into the temple of Apollo, the home of the Delphic Oracle on Mt. Parnassus, means, Know thyself. How, you might ask? Listen to Socrates: to find yourself, think for yourself. This seems so straightforward, but humanity society pushes more toward thought focused on blending in, getting by. The need to belong and to have respect is so strong it bends our thoughts, often before we know they have been changed. We change our values so they conform to the group not because we are weak, but because we are social animals.
Our life in community cuts against the grain of thinking for ourselves. This is why so many people have trouble with finding themselves. We seek out meditation, religious dogma, political ideology, even scientific certainty in place of careful examination of evidence for themselves. It is, at first, so pleasing to quiet the anxiety by replacing your own thought process with ready mades that we do not realize we have begun to censure ourselves.
Yet this much is true: if you have not weighed and considered a matter using your own reason, your own intuitions, your own feelings then you have moved further away from finding yourself. To do otherwise is a harsh discipline, often not pleasant, but it has one saving grace: you know who you are.
As you go through the day today, ask yourself if that thought is your own. Ask yourself if the value you hold comes from your decision making or the pre-cut cloth of public or group opinion. Ask yourself if you want to be who you are or who others would shape you to be.
