X-Message-Number: 17363
From: "George Smith" <>
References: <>
Subject: Beyond Good and Evil
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 13:37:41 -0700

Just some comments on this self worth issue.

Think this through carefully.

Some one suggests that they must have a positive value.

But why?

Value implies evaluation.

Evaluation implies standards.

"You" exist.  What is, is.  (Or at least you have the illusion you exist).

This is not an issue of evaluation but of PERCEPTION.

As yourself, you can't go OUTSIDE of yourself to evaluate yourself by some
external standard.

You can only PRETEND (lie to yourself)  that you can treat yourself as an
EXTERNAL object which can somehow be evaluated against other external
objects (experiences).

Pretense is, however, not actuality.

As Buckaroo Bonzai put it, "No matter where you go, there you are!"

You cannot experience your own self.  You can only experience and talk about
other experiences such as you actions, emotional reactions, thoughts, etc.

You CAN (and should) evaluate what you DO.  And what you do is subject to
change.

But YOU are not what you DO.  Identity is not utility.

Evaluating yourself is therefore not actually possible in the first place.

This culture uses buzz words like "self-esteem" and we are not supposed to
challenge these implied "good things" as necessarily being good or even
necessary.

Too bad.  I challenge them.

My deeper question if we could, should we EVALUATE what we cannot experience
(the self, the experiencer) at all and if so, for what reason?

The reasons usually given come from the cultural assumption that you have to
be "good" to be "deserving" of life and happiness.  "You have to feel good
about your self."

Balderdash.

The self, what you really ARE, is BEYOND good and evil in the same way that
a steak is beyond the question of is it brown or is it tasty.  The question
is wrong.  It assumes things which are simply not correct (in this case that
it must be EITHER brown or tasty instead of possibly both).

The culture would have us believe that in some undefined (and undefinable)
manner a positive self esteem is required for a happy life

As I have pointed out over and over again this is not so.  The animal
kingdom gives us many examples of creatures who never evaluate themselves as
they lack a language to create an abstraction of themselves (step one) to
then compare to something else (step two).

So it is not necessary to evaluate the self to possess ALL the motivations
required to enjoy life and fight for survival.

But, there are many, many problems which can and do arise if you go ahead
anyway and choose to indulge in self evaluation.

One is the inevitable problem of realizing that whatever standard you are
measuring your value against could result in your failure to be "okay".
Existential anxiety results.

Another is the interesting fact that you must then concern yourself with
whether or not OTHERS are doing self evaluation for THEMSELVES correctly.
The anxiety spreads.

Because we are dealing with a fundamental flaw in the recognition of what is
real versus an imagined (and actually impossible) condition (self
evaluation) we end up in a never ending effort to do unnecessary things in
an impossible effort to maintain an illusion.

Deep down inside all those who struggle to pursue positive self esteem run
into this anxiety.  It comes with the territory like getting wet if you go
swimming.

If you simply say, "I EXIST",  if you recognize that this is a simple fact
and does not require anything prior, and if then you go ahead and evaluate
what you do and others do, you may increasingly discover that life becomes
incredibly easier and more potentially rewarding.

The problem is that if you simply assume that self evaluation is somehow
"good" and "necessary" you can never experience what it is like to live free
from it.

Just my opinion,

George Smith
CI member

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