As long as I recall I have been at war. “I” has constantly shifted. Since age 20-just last year dontja know- I cheerfully self medicate with cheap THC to move from my dominate Left Hemisphere to a more Bicameral mentality. Of course you see this is a hypothesis in psychology and neuroscience which argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind, and that the evolutionary breakdown of this division gave rise to consciousness in humans. My Californicated take on Bicameralism was a consequence of my first 20 years of life.
The rain been comin' down
Clouds of mystery pourin'
Confusion on the ground
Good men through the ages
Tryin' to find the sun
And I wonder
Still, I wonder
Who'll stop the rain
Growing up in California as a youth I was very, very, Left Brain. At 20 I chose to free myself of Left brain dominance. Only 3 years of college had come and gone. It was 1977. A recurrent theme in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche is his imperative that we must create ourselves. Though this theme of self-creation runs throughout the entirety of his published works, Nietzsche neither fully articulates in one place the processes and guidelines by which such self- creation could occur, nor does he fully resolve the paradoxes inherent in this concept. This paper attempts to distill from these fragments a coherent interpretation of both how we can and why we should, despite (or, paradoxically, because of) our many external and internal constraints, fashion ourselves the way an artist shapes a work of art.
Throughout his works, one of Friedrich Nietzsche’s most common and consistent calls was for his readers to create themselves — at least those capable of creating themselves. We hear the first notes of this call sounded in Nietzsche’s first published work, The Birth of Tragedy, when Nietzsche talks of our “status as art works” and how the “genius in the act of creation” becomes “at once subject, object, poet, actor and audience.” This idea of shaping oneself as an “aesthetic phenomena” is finally announced explicitly by the middle period when Nietzsche asserts: “We, however, want to become those we are — human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves” Here we see Nietzsche adding nuances to this idea, knotting together his maxim “become who you are” with the project of self-creation. For Nietzsche self-creation is the means by which one becomes what one is. Nietzsche gives Goethe the highest praise when he announces that Goethe “disciplined himself to wholeness, he created himself”
Yes yes. Interdependent co-arising. A view of reality, a perspective that recognizes that everything, all conditions, are coming up at once and happening at once. Goethe merely chose and acted. A whole brain personality.
In his book Nietzsche, Naturalism, and Normativity, R. Lanier Anderson points out
“The nature of the self is contested within Nietzsche scholarship. Many texts suggest skeptical eliminativism or reduction of the self to sub-personal drives. But core Nietzschean doctrines (self-overcoming, perspectivist objectivity) seem to require substantial self-management, and Kantians insist that only a separate, transcendental self could play this role. This chapter resists both naturalistic reductionism and transcendentalism. Through analysis of the nature of drives and affects, and then of their interactions, it shows how the Nietzschean self emerges as a numerically distinct psychological object, over and above its constituent drives and affects. But this minimal self lacks the strong features of a transcendental ‘I’; it is complex, not simple, and its boundaries do not coincide with those of consciousness. Nevertheless, the resulting conception of the self affords an adequate basis for understanding Nietzsche's valuation of autonomy (self-governance).”
In any case I strive to fine tune the Hemispheres. So successful have I been a reasonable soul would laugh as I am destitute, unemployed, a pensioner, a writer and a concerned citizen in a failing Despotism. Only yesterday my wife’s doctor said her health was failing fora variety of non-medical reasons that he could not treat. She responded by assuring him she played safe. No crowds. Not much circulation. Her illness was not as last year with “Covid Pneumonia.” His rejoinder more or less was given her non-vaccination status it was a good idea to avoid crowds. I did not attack him. Nor did I snarl. Amazing. Consider well only 9 days of no THC and I could still ignore him as a pompous Kaiser employee well paid and self centered who dealt only harm because he was paid to do so. Had it been say 30 days of no THC my Left Brain would have dumped statistics I need not memorize. And thinking back in time I likely would have cheerfully continued with excess deaths and VAERS and asking him why he believed in the impossible.
I did not. My wife has deep faith in him. Misplaced as much as with her Rabbi’s but she is very Right Brain. Different than I in her belief in integrity. “Gotta be a healer or he would not be a doctor.” Gotta be spiritual or wouldn’t be a Rabbi.
Not my view. I dunno. Cynical? Or mayhap more sensitive because I moved from Far Left to Rational Right brain in a metaphoric way.
Iain McGilchrist writes,
“ Both hemispheres, it is now clear, can deal with either kind of material, words or images, in different ways. Subsequent attempts to decide which set of functions are segregated in which hemisphere have mainly been discarded, piece after piece of evidence suggesting that every identifiable human activity is actual y served at some level by both hemispheres. There is, apparently, vast redundancy. Enthusiasm for finding the key to hemisphere differences has waned, and it is no longer respectable for a neuroscientist to hypothesize on the subject.
This is hardly surprising, given the set of beliefs about the differences between the hemispheres which has passed into the popular consciousness. These beliefs could, without much violence to the facts, be characterized as versions of the idea that the left hemisphere is somehow gritty, rational, realistic but dull , and the right hemisphere airy-fairy and impressionistic, but creative and exciting; a formulation reminiscent of Selar and Yeatman's immortal distinction (in their parody of English history teaching, 1066 and All That) between the Roundheads – ‘Right and Repulsive’ – and the Cavaliers – ‘Wrong but Wromantic’.”
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World -Iain McGilchrist
ti cruyxpco'til;oiw 'tote; V£Kpoi:c;.
("Take on the complexion of the dead." -advice from
the oracle at Delphi to Zeno the skeptic when he asked
what he should do to attain the best life [trans. R. D. Hicks].)
I do agree. Everything surrounding us and influencing us is fakery.
Isn't this exactly the trouble with society today? That so much focus has been on becoming those seen in movies, in television, in essence becoming fake? In my novels, I speak specifically about being who one is, regardless of what that is, being true to oneself. The downside of which is that if one is a liar and a thief I seem to be saying, "then do that well and accept it" but I feel that it reaches further out. Recognize the essence of oneself and pursue that vigorously. Be true to oneself. If adjusting that to be what one wants to be and is willing to go through the pains and effort to do so, then certainly, create oneself, but to create oneself through lies and deception is not moral or ethical. To strive for and become that which one chooses to be is worthy of praise and the effort to do so.