The Fourth Self

[Dimmesdale]

You can NEVER succeed in being something other than you. But in failing to be yourself, and in failing to be what you are not, you give birth to your new self. And that you are, whether you like it or not.

By failing to be our true self in the past, that Former Self is hidden from our view, by a sandstone blockade. It is no longer available to us. There is no hatred here, no reproach. Only that we have invalidated ourselves from having access to that prior existence. We have to go somewhere else.

On the other side, we have our False Self which, though it looked attractive before, now reveals itself to be a path set by briars and thorns. Whatever ephemeral pleasure we might have had by following it, requires a heavy toll, and the more we indulge that sort of choice, that sort of inauthentic path, the more we have to deal with briars, thorns, and other such injuries that do not ultimately serve us.

On the other hand, what we are both forced to do, and what is enjoined on us through these circumstances, these conditions, is to embark on a third path. That path being Toward the scalable rock-face of Future winnable Self. That is the third path, and that is the path one must go to. Apart from the Former Self which is Inaccessible, and the False Self which is Impossible. We have to follow the promptings of Wisdom and do what we must to traverse the path that will bring us to a new self-understanding, and a new Life.

But before that time comes, when we win our new self, we must deal (and accept) the Self we have now. That Fourth Self. Which exists only in the present, and which is so, so unattractive. For it has None of the Wonderful Innocence of the Former Self, and None of the Fleeting Pleasure of the False Self, NOR any of the Won Glory of the Future Self.... It has, in one sense, nothing, and this is the most unappealing proposal imaginable.... And yet we HAVE to accept it. Because that is where we ARE on the roadmap of life! If we think we are in Former Self, or False Self, or Future Self, we will act on that basis, and we will therefore run counter to our best interest, because we are not grounded in reality, not grounded in an accurate estimate of ourselves. It is this Fourth Self that, in our distracted and easily duped mind, we lose sight of. And that I think leads to so many problems and misunderstandings.

Know yourself first, and FIRST know you are Nothing. Only then can you be able to do Everything Else that needs Doing.