In search of “The Self”? Like what?
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 1, 2012
In search of “The Self”?
There is this Andrew who posted his story on his search for “the self”.
The search started in the late ’70s, when in junior high. His parents lived in Dundee, IL and he “realized that there was more to life than what could be seen from his parents.”
Apparently, the search initially showed great promise: Andrew discovered his uncle’s old Doors records and a copy of The Catcher In The Rye.
Andrew was dogged in his pursuit, sacrificing his higher education, bank account, social status, and personal esteem.
Despite the rising costs and mounting adversity, he vowed he would never give up his search.
Andrew searched in a wide variety of places, including the I Ching, a tantric-sex manual, and a course in chakrology. He toured Prague in 1991 at the hight of his search.
“My family and friends kept telling me to give up. But I couldn’t believe that my true self was forever lost.”
Over the next two decades, the “leads just petered ou. Fuck it”: He uncovered nothing.
And the 38 year-old Andrew decided to call off “his search”
Andrew wrote:
“I always thought that if I kept searching and exploring, I’d discover who I truly was. Well, I looked deep into the innermost recesses of my soul, I “plumbed” the depths of my subconscious, and you know what I found?
An empty, windowless room the size of an aircraft hangar. From now on, if anybody needs me, I’ll be sprawled out on this couch drinking black-cherry soda and watching Law & Order like everybody else.”
“I can’t believe how many creative-writing courses I’ve taken, how many expensive sessions with every conceivable type of therapists. All that time wasted on a wild-goose chase.”
Since calling off the search, Andrew has canceled his yoga classes, turned in his organic co-op membership card, and withdrawn plans to go on a sweat-lodge retreat in Saskatchewan.
He loaded books by such diverse authors as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Meister Eckhart, and George Gurdjieff into a box labeled “free shit,” and left it outside of his apartment beside a trash can.
“The only books I’ll be reading from now on are ones that happen to catch my eye in the supermarket checkout line on the few occasions I leave my apartment to buy more Fig Newtons.”
Andrew will no longer lament his coding job at Eagle Client Services, but will rather “embrace the fact that I have a job that makes enough money to pay for cable.”
He vowed to marry “the first woman who will have me, whether I love her or not. And if I never throw another goddamn clay pot in my life, it’ll be too soon.”
Though hardened and haggard from his long search, Andrew expressed relief that it was over.
Asked if he had any advice for those who are continuing on their own searches, he had two words of advice: “Give up. Trust me: there’s nothing out there for you to find. You’re wasting your life. The sooner you realize you have no self to discover, the sooner you can get on with what’s truly important: celebrity magazines, snack foods, and Internet porn.”
I don’t understand.
Does going to work not a way of searching for the self?
Does earning a living to survive a search for the self?
Does meeting co-workers not a search for the self?
I don’t understand.
Did Andrew, during two decades, failed to go to a movie, to a park, to the zoo, to any kinds of celebration, visiting with his parents, watching Law & Order , “the Wire”…?
I don’t understand.
What Andrew means “you have no self to discover?”
I don’t understand. Since when authors as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Meister Eckart, and George Gurdjieff are the stuff for discovering the self?
Andrew must have known that Gurdjieff made the members slave 12 hours in manual works so that they don’t think, and refrain from having time and the energy to formulate any meaningful question and taking divergent active stands…
Andrew warmed his couch after his earning job to survive: Gurdjieff would have kicked him out of the comfort zone…
I don’t understand.
Is the road to discovering the self an excuse to end up browsing celebrity magazines, snack foods, and watching Internet porn?
Did Andrew stopped doing all these stuff in the last 20 years, not even occasionally?
Adonis Diaries 
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