The ancient Greeks believed Apollo slew a giant python- the remains of which were buried at Delphi. A prophetic cult grew around this sacred place, and young women who became known as Pythia would, in a trance, offer oracles in response to questions being put to them. Some of these oracles were…more clear than others. Herodotus tells the story of the Lydian king Croesus (rich as Croesus, anybody?) asking the Pythia whether he should attack the Persians. Her famous answer: “If you go to war a great army will be destroyed.” Assuming she meant the Persians, Croesus rode out to a battle that turned into a blood bath for his troops. Sometimes, things aren’t as clear as they seem.
For me this is true of the great phrase adorning the temple arch at Delphi: gnothi seauton, which means “know thyself”. Now, on the one hand I like this idea of knowing ourselves and being true to ourselves. Certainly, there is something to be said for acting with integrity and following the path we sense we are meant for rather than caving in to the pressure we feel from everyone around us. (It can be surprising how strongly other people feel about the choices we are making with our lives, no?)
And yet, I have concerns about this phrase- particularly around the notion that we have a singular Self to which to be true. Rather than a single, unstable, unchanging One True Self…people feel more complicated than that to me. The people I know- there are many, many selves running around inside of us. In Carl Sandberg’s poem “Wilderness” he talks about having a wolf, hog, and fish in him- “a menagerie”. Or, the great sociologist Erving Goffman showed we don’t have a singular, fixed self, but rather we are different selves in different situations. There’s a lot going on inside of us.
I’m particularly concerned today that in our highly competitive, highly scripted environment we make decisions so quickly about who and what we are capable of being. We have degree plans and professional certification tracks that don’t simply mark what we’ve studied but begin to name who we are on an ontological level- at the layer of our being and identity. We turn personality indicators into our own oracles prophesying whether a person is or is not likely to be successful in a certain role. And the truth is while we all have certain inclinations and ability, our true range and potential is so much greater than we are taught to imagine.
The story of the poem stems from a friend of mine who is a CPA and had been working as an an accountant in a large insurance company. She was good at what she did. She enjoyed her work much of the time. (Except when it was month or year end close, and somehow it always seemed to be that time…) She started to have a dream of becoming more involved in coding and tech, but she had no degree in this. She had no formal training. She had a memory of enjoying this kind of work when she was younger. And what made her stand out perhaps, is she is a dreamer. She didn’t immediately shut down her longing telling herself she had an accounting degree and shouldn’t be thinking such thoughts. No, there was a longing in her- a longing she chose to pursue. She wound up taking online classes and teaching herself how to code. She stayed up late into the evenings sometimes following this passion even though she had two small girls. What sustained her is she loved it and she sensed intuitively she was on the right path. She was discovering a self that may not have made sense to the world around her, a self that others couldn’t always see by looking, but it was a self that led to a new role within her company.
She had grown so tired of her accounting self, and she wasn’t sure how long she was going to make it. She interviewed with other companies, but relationships are central to her, and she valued the friends and colleagues she had made. And, in having real conversations with her boss and others, she explored her growing interest in tech, started meeting with others in her company doing this work, and ultimately wound up landing a new job working as an information analyst- a role involving project management, becoming a valued scrum master (I like to call her a scrum witch), and leading the way as her company transitions to Workday using her new skills and building on all of her former experience.
I’m not sure she would have discovered all of this if she just thought of herself a “CPA” or “an accountant” as if these areas of expertise represented her true self. This is especially so because she had advanced as an accountant- this move was seen by many of her friends as a lateral move or even a step back. But for her it was anything but- this was a pathway to flourishing she alone could sense as she made space for this new self come into being. And, the reality is she has many selves- selves she has yet to discover.
You and I- we have many selves inside of us, clashing, hiding, and jostling. And while it may be intimidating to think about how fluid we really are…I find it really exciting. I wonder what all is going on inside of you?
Gnothi Seauton
The Apollonian pythia sits
upon her tripod throne
and spits out a single
answer through her sacred lips.
Croesus asks if he should
go to war. “A great army
will be destroyed if you do.”
Overjoyed the Lydians rush
into battle discovering her oracle
has not one meaning but two.
The notion of one, right idea is alluring
but multiplicity, and mystery more true.
And you sit at your new desk and pause
thinking about your education and degree-
remembering wondering if it was your destiny
to account for your corporation’s accountability
or, if there was something else, something more
you were made for. Were there other selves
inside of you waiting to be seen? And you remember
when it hit you- you are no simple thing.
You are a maker, a mother, lover, and risk
taker. You have run at night on an Oregonian
coastal mountain road; and instead of sleeping, by pale
laptop light taught yourself how to code.
And you didn’t even have to leave, but discovered
a new place for you, one you weren’t aware
of before, a space building on everything you’ve known,
a role big enough for all the ways you’ve grown,
and will continue to. Standing before the temples
and library bookshelves the real work lies
not in getting to know our one precious self, but in creating
room for getting to know our many wild, and changing selves.