The self is not something you can set out looking for; it reveals itself gradually through the choices you make.

We must cease to concern ourselves with our unique suffering – whether we are happy or sad, fortunate or unfortunate, good or bad – and give up our neurotic and debilitating journeys of self-discovery. Art of true value requires, like a

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“The self, the place where we live, is a place of illusion. Goodness is connected with the attempt to see the unself… to pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is,”

“This is the entire essence of life: Who are you? What are you?” the young Leo Tolstoy distilled the eternal quest in his diary as he wrestled with moral development and the search for selfhood — a search that begins as soon as we become conscious, reaches a crescendo in the formative years of adolescence and young adulthood, and continues until... See more

If our multiplying selves are not a compromise of our integrity, but an evolutionary necessity, could we reconcile our expanding egostack with the need for coherence? Seeing other versions of ourselves may not always feel good, but there's a quiet redemption in embracing our contradictions – not as failures of authenticity, but as evidence of our... See more