“Know thyself,” said the philosophers. No problem, said the rest of us. Self-help, self-esteem, self-fulfillment, inner self, outer self – we’ve got the self covered. With those spotlights to chase away the shadows – well, as the song goes, “If you don’t know me by now, you will never, never, never know me.” But what if the self you think you know is one that has been sketched out for you instead? What if that self isn’t really you at all?
Throughout history, people have bee...
