Kathryn Shultz has written a fascinating and thought provoking piece in the New York Magazine about the self-help industry, challenging the unspoken philosophical flaw at the root of much of it. The full article is worth a read, but the main point she makes is where is this bit of the thing called the self which stays intact, immune to the addictions, fears and anxieties experienced by the rest of self and able to change that bit. Are there two selves in the self? The one with the problems and the one with both the solutions and the wherewithal to sort out the other one?
Not only has nobody ever found these two selves, nobody has even found THE Self!
I particularly loved her reference to Josh Rothman writing about clouds –
The journalist Josh Rothman once wrote a lovely description of what a cloud really is: not an entity, as we perceive it, but just a region of space that’s cooler than the regions around it, so that water vapor entering it condenses from the cold, then evaporates again as it drifts back out. A cloud is no more a thing, Rothman concluded, than “the pool of light a flashlight makes as you shine it around a dark room.” And the self, the Buddhists would say, is no more a thing than a region of air with thoughts passing through.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Beautiful post Bob.
Greetings Dr Bob,
I am a recent newbie to your blog, and this is my first time leaving a comment.
I found this post INTRIGUING… and the photography BEAUTIFUL – thank you so… much for sharing!
May I make a “BRIEF” attempt to stumble around these elusive Selves?
Reading your post (No such THING as the self) reminded of what Jesus said,
“You have to lose yourSelf to find yourSelf”.
I would suggest that finding this Self (or indeed recognising this Self) could be an act of grace?
I would suggest that the Self we may begin to lose could be built-up over time – through life’s inherent conditioning and traumas as we sometimes strive to survive in a challenging world?
When suffering becomes unbearable, cracks can appear in the familiar Self, a light shines out from behind this fractured Self, to reveal another Self that needs no introduction – to become One, and maybe no Self?
I like what the poet Rumi writes, “Keep your gaze on the bandaged place, that’s where the light enters you”.
May I include a little poem I wrote?
“This Light”
There is no substitute
Nor no pleasure this world can ever hold
For this light that washes over me
For it cleanses my body of the dark and painful places
That if I had the choice, I may not enter
Neither choose to tread alone
Though for a time as I lay here
With a heart humbled of impurity
And soul redeemed from this long and darkened night
I am reminded and guided home once more
By the grace of God in this light so pure
That only tears suffice this beauty and unspoken truth
Kind Regards
Brian :0)