{"id":358,"date":"2013-07-22T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cehupnl.com\/2013\/07\/22\/conocete-a-ti-mismo-2\/"},"modified":"2013-07-22T10:38:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T15:38:00","slug":"conocete-a-ti-mismo-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cehupnl.com\/en\/2013\/07\/22\/conocete-a-ti-mismo-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Know yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2013 I have heard that so many times and honestly\u2026 it seems to me a reverend stupidity \u2013 I said without reconsidering, and continue arguing-.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
"Know yourself" How can I not know myself, haven't I lived with myself all my life? Am I not myself all the time? <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Well, no, the truth is exactly the opposite: you don't know yourself and very few times in your life have you been yourself. What you know about yourself is your personality and your conditioning. \u2013<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
Ohhh!... Well, for a change, my dear guide, I don't understand anything.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Look, the word personality comes from the Greek \u201cperson\u201d. The persona was the mask used by Greek actors in plays. So, your personality is the mask with which you relate to others, but it is not you. Have you noticed that when you are alone and you think that nobody is watching you, you behave differently? <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Of course I've noticed - I replied excitedly feeling that I was beginning to understand you -, even with some people we are in a certain way and with others we are different.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 That's right, your personality is something acquired, which has to do with the situations that surrounded your childhood, with the society in which you were born, with external things. None of them you chose and over none of them you had control. <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 But then\u2026 do we always wear a mask to relate to others?<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
- Always. A mask of learned attitudes, of commonplaces, of rehearsed reactions. A way of being and acting that leaves no room to be yourself: to be spontaneous.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 And we hardly make contact with each other. We avoid showing the other.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 We avoid it because we are ashamed, because they have told you that you can be whatever you want\u2026 except be yourself. And in those rare moments when you make contact with your being, when you cry emotionally, laugh without thinking or dance without control, what happens?<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 They repress you, they think you're crazy, they criticize you.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 That's right, others are uncomfortable that you show the real me, because in society you live in the "as if", in the superficial, in the comfortable, without making contact with the other. Showing your emotions, your vulnerability, your joy, your innocence, is crazy.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 But\u2026 with the people we love? with them if we show our true selves, right? <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 That would be wonderful, but it is not reality. We are so identified with our mask, with our personality, that we think that "it" is us and even in privacy we continue to respond to a program. When you kiss your girlfriend, when you make love to her, you don't touch, it's just the masks that kiss and caress each other.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 But\u2026 we're sorry! - I said a little annoyed.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 They feel a small part, believe me. Between so many learned attitudes, so many automatic actions and so many distractions of your mind, there is no space left to see the other, to feel yourself.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Well, I find it hard to believe that we are always hiding our true selves.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 You hide it so much that you don't even know him! When people aren't trying to convince others that it's something it's not, they're trying not to let anyone know what it really is.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
On the one hand, exaggerating and lying to create a more pleasant face for others and on the other hand, pretending and hiding because what he thinks he really is, embarrasses him. <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 We hide our diaries, we repress our emotions, we don't express our ideas\u2026 but then, do we live in lies?<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Not in lies, on the surface, our personalities are the circumference, our being is the center. The circumference is the "as if".<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 As if we loved each other, as if we cared, as if we loved each other, as if\u2026<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 The husband pretends to be faithful and has a lover, the wife pretends she doesn't know so she doesn't have to worry about money, the children pretend to study, the bureaucrat pretends to work, the politician like he matter, the policeman as if he were honest, the priest as if he were pure and chaste.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 And how do we then get to know each other?<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Observe the way in which we have been conditioned. Pay attention to the programs in which we respond blindly.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Wait, wait\u2026 that sounds like we're robots\u2026 <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 We are robots, slaves, puppets. We all are. There is nothing original in any of us. Since our childhood we have been enslaved, conditioned, programmed.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
What we believe we are, our goals, our values, our fears, our tastes; they were imposed on us by others. We were never given the opportunity to choose our beliefs. We never had the chance to question them. We have chosen nothing.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
What you think you are, that person you defend tooth and nail, that personality of which you feel proud or... so ashamed, is not you.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
Those goals that move you, the fears that control you, the ideas that give meaning to your life, the values that you respect; you inherited them all. They were forced on you when you had no chance to reject them, to even analyze them.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Hey! You're already overdoing it! \u2013 I said furious- Is it that we are a bunch of puppets without will, without the possibility of choosing anything? So we are manipulated at will and we don't even realize it?<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
An hour passed without my guide saying anything. I stopped insisting that he give me an answer when they realized that that was exactly what he wanted to teach me. That I was used to easy answers, to pre-digested information, I liked not only that they gave me food in the mouth, but also that I wanted someone to chew the food for me.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
– Did you choose to be born?<\/i>\u2013 he finally said.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
- Nope <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Did you choose your parents or your family?<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Some say that if we choose them.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 That's newage bullshit. Did you choose them?<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Nope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Did you choose to be a man? <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Nope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Being Mexican? <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Nope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Being Catholic?<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Nope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
- Your name? <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Nope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 Is there something important in your life that has determined your way of being and that you have chosen?<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
You don't have the faintest idea of who you are, you live behind the mask that is the personality that you have been given, without being able to show it to others. You ingest alcohol in order to loosen your bonds. Without foreign substances in your body you cannot speak, you cannot laugh openly, you cannot dance, you cannot even express your emotions. Since you live through others, their opinion is more important than your feelings. The "what will they say" is what governs your life. <\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
Knowing yourself is knowing what remains when you get rid of all those labels with which you have identified yourself: ideologies, beliefs, nationalities, stereotypes, fashions.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Which is not easy.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\u2013 It is the most difficult thing you can imagine, because getting out of the pile is jumping, venturing into the unknown, it is as Jesus said: \u201cgetting lost in order to find oneself\u201d.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
\u2013 Know yourself \u2013 I repeated, now with more respect \u2013 wow! Who said it first?<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
- The Greeks<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
- Oh yeah! Already knew. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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\u2013 Mhhh\u2026 Of course\u2026<\/span><\/i><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

Con\u00f3cete a ti mismo<\/div>
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