A Journey into the Self

“Silent Peaks” (2023) by Pope Bacay, acrylic on canvas

With the right amount of god complex, the desire to become human must be present. I must desire my own humanity and accept all of its contradictions. I must accept and understand that I cannot become a god. I can only feel how it is to become god.

Balancing what I want to be against what I am capable of requires a certain set of parameters in making a decision. “Know thyself” is probably the most well-known adage from the Delphic maxims and it is so fundamental it remains to be timeless and profound yet forgettable at the same time. It is an expression of truth so known by our subconscious it starts to lose its meaning the moment it crosses our minds. A two-word statement so slippery and quick in its utterance it becomes difficult for the mind to latch. So then only those who pay conscious attention to it, to examine those two words carefully and stare at its mundane glory, can fully appreciate the simplicity of life and the difficulties of living well.

Struggling on this path of self-discovery, I find myself constantly reminded of my own limitations. These limitations are a mixture of physical and mental limitations, as well as self-imposed limitations, which include principles I have committed myself to, such as:

1. My time and energy, as my most valuable resources, must be prioritized for my partner, my dog, and my immediate family. The rest are secondary.

2. Emotion is a guide, not a judge. It must not be allowed to make a decision.

3. Reason is an arbiter of emotions. Let it weigh every consequence for each possibility and decide the best course of action with all things considered.

4. No choice comes free. Every choice is a tradeoff, which must be evaluated by emotions and reason. When faced with a choice, a decision is always framed as the best struggle and a kind of pain that is worth choosing.

5. Every decision must have an emotional quality to it but not as an influence. Let values and principles come first, then attend to every choice with emotion, and let reason align those emotions with the values and principles. Discard any emotion that does not align with the values and principles, then let reason make the decision.

6. Make the most out of regretful decisions. To regret means I have gambled in making a decision. To gamble in making a decision means that I must have been unable to make a choice aligned with my values and principles. To be unable to make a choice means I have let my emotions make a decision instead of reason.

7. My freedom is proportional to my self-knowledge. It does not depend on other people’s thoughts and their actions towards me. My freedom extends to a shared responsibility of the community and ends on the other’s individual responsibility.

8. All my actions are motivated by my journey to self-discovery. More ideal if my actions have the possibility to also influence the other’s journey to their own self-discovery.

So far, I have arrived on these limitations to define the most important things in my life. Enough to keep my decisions in a certain path that serves my goals and those who are near me. Planning is much easier when it is easy to rule out the noise of emotions that occur in my everyday life. It is much easier to wade through the fog of emotions when I have paid enough attention to it to grow more sensitive about the inner child in me. I have matured enough to listen when to indulge the deprived crybaby in me and when it takes on the noise of temptation.

To desire is an instinct. To desire well is a skill. In desiring well, I add focus and quality to our desires to greatly improve myself. To give in to one’s desires shows a lack of discipline. There are a lot of things I desire and to keep those desires at bay and to consciously say no to impulse allows me to examine each desire and select what is good from what isn’t. Good desires serve me and make a positive impact in achieving my goals. It does not impede on my plans. Bad desires are birthed by the noise of emotions and the moment’s exaltations. I employ my ability to choose as a priority. It is a learned privilege to choose—the awakening of the self in the midst of life’s chaos and misfortunes. It is the soul taking shape, whenever in one’s life may it happen.

If my soul were my house, I have found myself cleaning every nook and cranny as a way to prepare for the upcoming year. It is cliche. It is unnecessary. It is irrational. But every now and then, this house needs a little bit of cleaning whenever weeks and months start to get busy. During this time when I am finding myself spending more time in my home, I might as well do some chores I have been postponing for an eternity.

In this sense, I realized that I have kept my religious upbringing under the floorboards. I realized that I still do not believe in God but in Spinoza’s God. I am a part of that which I am incapable of understanding. Yet, I always attempt by understanding myself. I was not made from the image of a god but I am a part of one. I do not serve a god but in serving myself, understanding myself, despite all of its incompleteness, I acknowledge the god within me, with all of its contradictions, I enable this divine part of me by aligning myself to virtue.

It is lonely to go into a journey towards self-discovery. Multiple paths that lead to uncertainty and snaking trails that lead you back to where you started. It is a frightening venture for you will encounter multiple versions of yourself. I have encountered multiple past selves that cry for help and drowning in bottomless lakes of guilt. I saw versions of who I could have been hiding in the bushes, praying to absolve them of shame. There are chatty prideful versions of me, mentioning all of their achievements in life but whose backs are full of flesh wounds, their exuberant attitude is meant to ignore the regret of the things they have unwittingly sacrificed. I am grateful for Dante’s Virgil to muster the strength and courage to walk through my own hell, to not look away from different versions of myself and stand my ground for their time have passed. They are beyond help and all I could do is forgive them, myself, and move forward.

This is still an ongoing journey, and I am not sure if there are still multitude of depths to descend to. How many circles of my own hell must I lay my feet on in order to attain more self-knowledge? How much intolerable cries from my old selves must be ignored so I would not make the same mistakes I did before? Only as long as I heed the call of Reason and trust its judgement will I only be able to survive this and succeed.