6 Ways to Philosophically be Yourself.

I write from the abyss of my desk lovingly set up in my parents home. Thoughts on philosophy and what it would be like if a philosopher wanted you to be yourself. Rather difficult to figure out. What is the self? Where is the self? Is there really one self? Difficult questions abound. 

1) Decide if you believe in a self 

The first thing you need philosophically, to believe in yourself, is a metaphysical foundation that calls for a belief in a self in the first place. Many philosophers don't believe in a singular self. They might believe in a radically constructed intersubjective manifestation of a narrative construction of self. But the narrative construction of self is integrated through many people's subjective understandings of you. Do you believe in a self that is separate from all of that? Does yourself exist regardless of what other people think of you or if they think of you? On a metaphysical level do you believe in individual selves which construct a whole? If you do have a self, how is it defined? By yourself or by other people? 

2) Define Yourself 

After you've decided you believe in yourself, or at least in a self: you have to define yourself. When you define yourself how is it that you do so? Is there some sort of ephemeral binding core to yourself that cannot be ripped away and cannot be explained with words? Or is yourself more like a tower of virtue terms; cowardly, kind, generous, thoughtful, lonely. Is yourself a variety of terms? If so, then is yourself really defined by other people? Are you defined primarily by your gender first when you meet people? Or are you defined by your name? Does your name mean a variety of things? Many virtue terms? Or is yourself a simple thing? Just you? A differentiated core that runs within you and every living thing? Is it just humans that have selves, or do animals have them too? 

3) Be True to Yourself 

Once you've defined yourself you have to be true to yourself. It's difficult to lie to yourself because every time you lie yourself is aware of it. Can you be true to yourself?  Can you only look out toward that which might be objectively true. Test all of your thoughts, and ascriptions? Do those thoughts and ascriptions mean more than the bright lights and chemical cocktails that pass through an MRI while you're having them? If so, why? It's not enough to be yourself (once defined) you must also be true to what you've defined. 

3) Become Yourself 

Once you've gone through this entire philosophical process, you might have figured out you're a very different person than the one you thought you were when you began it. So, at this point in the process you must become yourself. Be the self you defined. Perhaps you were always yourself and so there's no necessity to become that which you were always. Or perhaps, you've learned something new, and you need to become this new person you are. Maybe you need a tobacco pipe for instance to truly be yourself. Or an aura of mystique. Or maybe you need to be nerdier. Less overtly lame in trying to be cool. Maybe who you were the whole time, was something simpler than you could ever imagine and you need to become ascetic. This is the philosophical process of being yourself. 

4) Live in yourself 

This one sound obvious, but I mean more overtly, live in yourself. Go outside every day and touch something physical other the keyboard and keypad. Be a part of nature. Perceptually connect yourself to that which is real, not just the mental maps we put over that which is real. Distract yourself from complicated texts with small frivolities. When you eat a piece of chocolate savor every bite and then allow the chocolate to become a part of yourself too. Live inside of yourself. Be yourself yes, but really live inside of yourself. Now that you know what yourself is, you can fully live with yourself. 

5) Love Yourself 

This one is self-explanatory. You have to love yourself. Whatever construction you've chosen for what the self is. Once you believe in a self and you believe you have one, you must love your own self. Maybe that sounds wrong, not philosophically sound. And perhaps it is, but the philosophical meaning behind a banality is a lot more complicated than you might imagine. Love yourself. Not like a solipsist or a narcissist, but like a person who has found out the objective reality of themselves and now gives themselves simple pleasures of the day. Like a brisk walk against the cold air. 

6) Unmoor Yourself 

Life is not a series of turbulent seas wherein you sit as an object torn apart board by board. You are an agent with free-will. Yourself is not an object. Within an existentialist framework wherein we construct meaning for ourselves, your self is not an object. You are a subject. Objects are for the realms of Physics to investigate. The self is in the realm of philosophy. You can be whatever it is you will yourself to be when you realize that your self, is not an object. You are a subject, with a subjective understanding of the world and narrative constructions of your own life. Release yourself from the one obligation of suffering under one constraint you feel you can't leave -- into the wide world of possibilities. Every single one more frightening and difficult than the last yes, but at least you've completely unmoored yourself. 

Well, that's all I can say for now. If you liked this comment and follow. 

And if you don't, well then don't.