On Changing Myself

If our lives are not purposeful and rewarding, then our lives are pointless. In order to attain a purposeful and rewarding life, we need to explore who we are and expose (to ourselves and to others) the features of our individuality. Purpose in our lives is contained in a sequence: meaning (in my life), freedom (to choose, to change, to love), action (to open up to possibilities), how we should act. Non-Utilitarian Philosophical Counselling, the thinking act of Practical Philosophy with another, can usefully utilize these elements and the sequence of which they form part. ‘Change in myself’ is the first move. We cannot approach the subsequent sequence, in any way, without this initial openness to what can follow.

It is commonly believed that oil lies beneath the ground in 'reservoirs' — large lakes lying on the floors of vast underground caverns. Under this impression, we imagine the drill breaking through the ceiling of the cavern, descending, entering the black sea and drawing it up to the surface. We picture the oil running towards the light, gushing explosively into the brightness of the surface. So too, we think of discovering our true self, or elements of it. Subconscious problems, we judge, lie within us like encapsulated reservoirs — a childhood experience, a hint of disgust, a wish unfulfilled and corrupted, a fear embedded and disguised. These problems, we judge, wait to be found, to be cracked open and released. We imagine that giving them freedom opens our life to a fresh brightness of knowledge, as if release itself holds the key to change and freedom. It is the same for our conscious problems. Should we act this way? Is this action in good faith? Is there a moral conflict? We convince ourselves — perhaps mirroring the trade of neoliberalism, in the clutches of which the western world wallows — that in exchange for the effort of bringing our problems to the surface, and by seeing them in the light, the product of truth will reward us. In this way we can conveniently cure our latent ills, un-confuse our confusions, give integrity to our actions, somehow go forward better prepared, cleansed, changed, and enhanced.

Sadly, our understanding of geology, if we make the 'reservoir' assumption, is wrong. Oil only rarely sits in reservoirs. Usually it is bonded within the solid rock, impregnating seemingly boundless masses of sandstone or limestone, buried in the subterranean darkness of the earth. Where it is, the earth is thick with it, making denser the already dense, filling up the pores of the deepest strata; oil is a permeating blackness filling the already black. It is the same with the psychopathology that stalks us, the worries that inhabit us, and the dilemmas that pull us apart. All such features, known and unknown, are integral to our very being, bonded into us, filling us. When it comes to the earth, or the complexity of our own inner darkness — 'Lady, it's rock all the way down!' (Hospers, 1997, p.59).

Change is not explosive, it does not ‘gush to the surface’. True, we may have moments of revelation, but these are merely pinnacles in our sequence of self-knowledge. Neither do we locate, identify, and remove our problems as if we were picking weeds from our garden. Instead, if we are to become rewarded by individual purpose, we come to understand the nature of our own geology, come to be acquainted with where the oil lies, come to accept what we are and come to accept that the only thing which is important is our own sense of meaning and how this leads us to act. This does not mean that we do not examine ourselves, far from it, self-examination is crucial, but we do not look for reservoirs that we can drain, instead, we look for ourselves and how we can change, not ourselves but how we go forward. We should not expect to purchase change by trading away our discovered ills. It simply is not like that. If I had a bad experience when I was four, I will always have had that bad experience when I was four. That experience has, in part, contributed to what I am and nothing can change that. Moreover, I should not want it changed. We are not a shelf upon which we can assemble only the goods we want. What I can do though, is change how I am now, change how I act from now, change how I accommodate what irrefutably I am, and change myself into the future.

‘Non-Utilitarian Philosophical Counselling’ (‘N-U Philosophical Counselling’) is my term for Philosophical Counselling that rejects much of the neoliberal ‘trade’ basis of conventional professional/client relationships. It is ‘thinking companionship’ involving another in the clarity gained from the act of doing thinking. In this way, it is a union, an act of love, a gift, and its accomplishment a testament to our humanity — a moment or two of being, a glimpse or two of reality.

Hospers, John, (1997) An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 4th edition, London, Routledge.