I Give Advice I Don't Practice. Did You Also Do That?

rightscomet (64)in WORLD OF XPILAR • 3 years ago

I don't want to be dishonest so I'll admit that the image credit goes to Kiley Lawson

Do the Greeks still say, "Know thyself"?

Google and Facebook took the ancient advice and ended up knowing that you're gay before you know that you're gay, for example, and then predict the desires of your hearts.

Because we censor, by not smiling; we promote, by not showing contempt; we reward and promote the contents of our hearts in subtle and not so subtle manners throughout our wakeful moments; we buy the desires of our hearts and then, as an afterthought, justify the purchase. Science reveals this about us.

We bullshit and defend our rationality; we bullshit and attack the irrationality of others; we bullshit without knowing that we are bullshitting; we bullshit to censor things we don't like; we bullshit to promote things we like; we bullshit with the tall claims that we are rational.

This is the joke we crack and think we are serious and not joking.

Aaron Swartz, the internet's boy, knew about the lies we believe.

“Growing up, I slowly had this process of realizing that all the things around me that people had told me were just the natural way things were, the way things always would be, they weren’t natural at all," Aaron Swartz continues, "They were things that could be changed, and they were things that, more importantly, were wrong and should change, and once I realized that, there was really no going back.” That's the fire in him.

You can read the book, "The Boy Who Could Change the World: The Writings of Aaron Swartz," and not be disappointed.

“Think deeply about things," Aaron Swartz advises, "Don’t just go along because that’s the way things are or that’s what your friends say. Consider the effects, consider the alternatives, but most importantly, just think.”

When thinkers and philosophers say, "Human beings don't know what they want," they are rightly saying that "You don't know what you want". This is deep.

We buy using our hearts, and then justify the purchase using our brains. We then bullshit with claims of being rational: we reveal the contents of our hearts in manners that are subtle and not so subtle. The ancient Greeks therefore said, know thyself.

The message is relevant to this day. We have to observe ourselves as if we are observing another person. We can observe what we do and then figure out who we are: we express ourselves through our body language and use facial expressions of cheerfulness, showing approval, or visceral reactions of contempt, showing disapproval; we express our lives in countless different ways.

Be the Google and Facebook of your life and read the data about your own heart. Predict your own body language. Predict your own behavior. Predict your own future. And know thyself.