Had an interesting revelation while binge-watching the Great British Baking Show last week (don’t judge me!). There were some contestants who had issues (lack of confidence, emotional control) that were impacting their results on the show. But what struck me was that they already KNEW that about themselves. They even commented on it to the camera.
γνῶθι σεαυτόν – know yourself
Know Thyself is a Delphic Maxim, inscribed on the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It’s also the most well known of the whole long list of Delphic Maxims and the one most frequently quoted by magical types. But watching the show, it suddenly came to me that knowing yourself isn’t enough. Necessary but not sufficient, as they say. Because in addition to knowing yourself, you also have to:
grow yourself
Let’s take this one contestant who lacks confidence and is always apologizing for everything. It’s good that he sees that aspect to his personality, but what he he going to do about it? How does he increase his confidence, without turning into a jerk, and be able to express himself in the world openly, showing off his talents without needing to apologize? Or how about the woman who loses it under pressure. How can she learn to keep her cool when the heat is on and become the kind of person who is calm in the midst of chaos?
I kind of wish it didn’t rhyme actually, as it makes it sound hokey. But change yourself wasn’t quite right. It’s not just making changes in your life, it’s about making changes that grow you into the best version of you that you can be. You can know yourself end to end, but without the ability to grow, knowing yourself isn’t particularly useful. We all have a picture in our heads of who we’d like to become. Our best self, our perfected state, our higher self — whatever you call it, the idea is the same. We want to keep growing and getting better at being ourselves.
It turns out that know thyself is the easy part! It’s the growth that comes from that understanding that’s hard. People are often quite aware of their personalities. They will even share their worst characteristics with others. But while those things might hold them back or cause them harm, they can’t change it — even if they want to.
I have issues with this just as much as the next person. I want to do certain things for myself (not because it’s moral or because anyone told me to… I really do want it for me) and yet, I struggle. This coming year I’m going to be embarking on a wild experiment. I’m going to pick one thing that I want to change about myself and I’m going to try all kinds of crazy stuff to make that change. I’ll be using my own life as a laboratory of both mundane and magical techniques. But instead of just random life hacking, my goal is to change this one thing about myself — everything will be focused on that (it’s an aspect of the EBER project). Changing my mindset, my unhelpful thought patterns, my habits… everything will be directed to this goal. I’ve been doing masses of research into habit formation and change and coming up with ways to strengthen those techniques with magic. But until I do it for myself, I can’t be sure that it works. And I’ll be journaling and writing about it all along the way
