you can't 'be yourself'

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Why do people say 'be yourself'? You can't 'be yourself'. It's stupid.

― mm, Monday, 10 January 2005 02:40 (twenty years ago)

be a tree. leaf.

― miccio (miccio), Monday, 10 January 2005 02:49 (twenty years ago)

do try to be yourself, dear.

― American Apparel and Jeanne-Claude (deangulberry), Monday, 10 January 2005 02:51 (twenty years ago)

And sometimes they say 'just be yourself', which sounds a bit dismissive, as though the person they are advising is a lowly hopeless kind of unitary subject.

― estela (estela), Monday, 10 January 2005 02:53 (twenty years ago)

I can't be myself (nabisco) because i'm posting from paul's phone!

― Paul Eater (eater), Monday, 10 January 2005 03:01 (twenty years ago)

A person who gets so far as making the supposed unity of the self two-fold is already almost a genius, in any case a most exceptional and interesting person. In reality, however, every ego, so far from being a unity is in the highest degree a manifold world, a constellated heaven, a chaos of forms, of states and stages, of inheritances and potentialities. It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of her ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon. Even the best of us shares this delusion.

― anonymous poster, Monday, 10 January 2005 03:02 (twenty years ago)

And sometimes they say 'just be yourself', which sounds a bit dismissive, as though the person they are advising is a lowly hopeless kind of unitary subject.

-- estela (estelaisale...), January 10th, 200

Oh yeah! I didn't even think of that. I didn't get beyond 'what is myself'.

― mm, Monday, 10 January 2005 06:39 (twenty years ago)

It appears to be a necessity as imperative as eating and breathing for everyone to be forced to regard this chaos as a unity and to speak of her ego as though it were a one-fold and clearly detached and fixed phenomenon.

I suppose it's true

― mm, Monday, 10 January 2005 06:40 (twenty years ago)

You have to look at yourself before you can be yourself.

Look at yourself... JUST LOOK... AT.. YOUR.. SELF!

("Wow, thank you doctor! That answers all of my questions!")

― donut christ (donut), Monday, 10 January 2005 06:42 (twenty years ago)

ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΗΑΥΤΟΝ.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 10 January 2005 06:56 (twenty years ago)

No, let's try that again:

ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ.

Ignore that first oracle.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 10 January 2005 06:58 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, for a minute there I was about to have to put up my dukes.

― Allyzay Needs Legs More (allyzay), Monday, 10 January 2005 07:00 (twenty years ago)

haha it's still pretty saucy though!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 10 January 2005 07:02 (twenty years ago)

The delusion rests upon a false analogy. As a body everyone is single, as a soul, never. In literature, too, even in its ultimate achievement, we find this customary concern with apparently whole and single personalities.

There is no trace of such a notion in the poems of ancient India. The heroes of the epics of India are not individuals, but whole reels of individualities in a series of incarnations. And in modern times there are poems, in which, behind the veil of a concern with individuality and character that is scarcely, indeed, in the author's mind, the motive is to present a manifold activity of the soul. Whoever wishes to recognize this must resolve once and for all not to regard the characters of such a poem as separate beings, but as the various facets and aspects of a higher unity, in my opinion, of the poet's soul.

― anonymous poster, Monday, 10 January 2005 07:10 (twenty years ago)

To answer the original question, and "anonymous poster" touches on this in the post above, you can never really be that which you perceive yourself to be. You can never say "I am that" or in this case "That is myself". Unfortunately, you will always try to be "that". It's a terminal neurosis, but at least you can take comfort in its universality.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 10 January 2005 07:18 (twenty years ago)

The only idea here I disagree with is: you can't be yourself. Rather, you can't not be yourself. Or to put it another way:

"Wherever you go, there you are."

― wetmink (wetmink), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

I am what I am.

― Andrew (enneff), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:32 (twenty years ago)

That's what you think!

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:34 (twenty years ago)

If you can't be yourself, the least you can do is beat my guest.

― donut christ (donut), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

That was a typo, right?

― Andrew (enneff), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:40 (twenty years ago)

Your being here is present enough.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:43 (twenty years ago)

Your beatings here are pleasant enough as well.

― donut christ (donut), Monday, 10 January 2005 08:51 (twenty years ago)

beat yourself

― Stevem On X (blueski), Monday, 10 January 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

dont believe in yourself, dont proceed with belief. If you ask me knowledge comes with death's release.

― lukey (Lukey G), Monday, 10 January 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

i thought being yourself means like, not acting in a way that you're not uncomfortable with being. like, saying you like such and such when you don't just to be popular/controversal etc. i tried it a couple of times, i don't like it.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 10 January 2005 10:16 (twenty years ago)

so you never really liked B&S?

― Stevem On X (blueski), Monday, 10 January 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

chck chckdy check yourself, before you wreck yourself

― Ste (Fuzzy), Monday, 10 January 2005 10:32 (twenty years ago)

liking b+s: way to be popular/controversal.

― ken c (ken c), Monday, 10 January 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

When Ken's himself RickyT shouts at him.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 10 January 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

I want to perform the role that complements each person I meet.

― youn, Saturday, 15 January 2005 09:29 (twenty years ago)

This is no holiday - I'm travelling for 6 months to find myself.

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Saturday, 15 January 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

I think some of the best advice I've received is 'trust yourself'

― Maria D. (Maria D.), Saturday, 15 January 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

What do you do if you don't trust yourself? Attempt to move yourself by the force of thinking "I want to be that"? I may be a multiplicity of contradictory impulses but in the dark moments when I lack all faith and trust in myself, I can gather these variegated things and say: I am that. I may be what I am at the moment, which contradicts what I was before, but there is perhaps some power in saying that This, rather than That, is what I am. So then 'Be Your Self' might just be a way of saying, be the thing that you most want to be. And though it is a construction, a selection of characteristics, it can be powerful because it constructs a narrative along which the self can travel, rather than sinking into the darkness of hopeless confusion that can result when the sense of Self (i am this, not that) is lost or angrily discarded.

― gimlet blue (gimlet), Saturday, 15 January 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

just be yourself = stop being who *you* think you are, and be who *I* think you are

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 15 January 2005 18:50 (twenty years ago)

you can't be AT "be yourself" because Vinyl closed :(

http://ubl.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/amg/music/bio/500678_dannyt_200x200.jpg

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Saturday, 15 January 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

"So then 'Be Your Self' might just be a way of saying, be the thing that you most want to be."

Constantly becoming is a tricky balancing act, not coming off as a wannabe or pretentious or whatnot.

― anonymous poster, Saturday, 15 January 2005 19:47 (twenty years ago)

Constantly becoming is a tricky balancing act, not coming off as a wannabe or pretentious or whatnot.

-- anonymous poster

Knock it off.

― martin m. (mushrush), Saturday, 15 January 2005 19:53 (twenty years ago)

sorry, i will. i was being serious, though

― anonymous poster, Saturday, 15 January 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

No need to apologize. I was being facetious.

― martin m. (mushrush), Saturday, 15 January 2005 22:19 (twenty years ago)

this establishing who "i" am and "you" are and what either means is a tricky business complexified by online culture. ("i" hope i never utter anything so pedantic ever, ever again)

― apologizing poster, Saturday, 15 January 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

No doubt.

Big time bonus points for the word "complexified."

― martin m. (mushrush), Saturday, 15 January 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

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