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Comment by vichu | Hacker News Reader

"Be yourself" as advice is bad advice if you take it uncharitably. It's good advice for individuals that repress their identities and discard their own happiness - e.g. gay men and women that force themselves to act straight (though not without caveat as death/execution/persecution is very real). If you reinterpret it as "be authentic" or "become yourself", it again takes a better meaning for those without fundamental crises of identity. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs for good reason. Despite this I don't disagree with the advice to "be less yourself". I don't think article is wrong and this advice still resonates with me - taking detours is part of life. If you need to take a step back to take two steps forward, it's worth it - but god damn it you should still "be yourself" at the end of it all. If you have to lose who you are, it's not worth it.

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One thing I've found again and again is that a lot of advice is good for some people (even most people) but terrible for others. It all depends where you're starting.

What is an example of a person for whom this is terrible advice?

I can only jokingly think of people who are naturally hostile or low on EQ. "They can't handle all this!" kind of people.

There's also people whose natural tendencies are thoroughly self destructive. For instance, I know a person who doesn't feel like themselves at home. Their favorite moment in the world is when, after speaking at a tech conference and getting praise from random attendees, they get blasted in the after party with something legal or illegal, and have unprotected sex with multiple partners, at least some of which they just met that day, and probably won't remember in the morning. Their quest to feel more like themselves leads them to dozens of trips a year, while their children ask why they have such a demanding job. In practice, they hold their job because they have relations with said CEO, as coworkers know that complaining about their coworker's lack of productivity will lead to termination.

And this is just one example. I have quite a few more of different flavors, all of which involve someone deciding that "being themselves" is all about destructive behavior. They don't lack EQ: In fact, I'd say almost all of them have very high EQs, but they are also either very damaged, or not very good people.

Those are good examples actually. Basically, if someone really latches on to a "just be yourself and don't think about it" philosophy, they're cutting off their only source of feedback that could help them grow and mature socially.

It's a good approach for someone who's already developed those social skills and wastes a lot of time second guessing themselves, but it's a terrible approach for someone who's really immature or unpolished. It gives them carte blanche to dismiss all conflicts and disagreements as being someone else's fault.

I've known too many people who will formulate vast and complicated worldviews to explain away all their personal troubles, before they'll ever consider looking in the mirror and admitting that they might be able to improve some things about themselves. Example: incels and redpillers. They will change their view of the entire world before they consider changing their view of themselves. Someone who habitually blames everything on other people is unlikely to ever perceive their own faults, and may even embrace them rather than grow out of them.

People who won't understand it, like many literalist commenters here, and the author of the article who took it as an excuse to continue acting like a solipsistic child

What is an example of a person for whom this is terrible advice?

Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.

How do we know they were being themselves?

Maybe Hitler's true self was being a painter, maybe the horrors of the trenches or Germanys humiliation pushed him to it? Maybe it was the rejection of not being able to sell any paintings.

HN, the place on the web I can visit if I want to find people defending Hitler.

You’re right benj111, maybe he was just misunderstood.

Lol, I'll take that as a compliment.

I don't think I was defending him though? If he's killing millions of people whilst not being himself isn't that in some ways worse?

The variation I like is, "Become who you are."

That's a good one. I also like "Become your best self".

Less profound but invites continual improvement, and it subtly elicits what matters to you.

That's Nietzsche's "werde, der du bist".

> The human who doesn't want to belong to the masses need only cease to go easy on themselves; let them follow their conscience, which cries out to them "Be yourself! You are none of those things that you now do, think, and desire." Every young soul hears this call night and day and trembles, for when it thinks of its true liberation, it has an inkling of the measure of happiness for which it is destined from eternity. As long as it is shackled by the chains of opinion and fear, nothing can help it attain this happiness. And how bleak and senseless this life can become without this liberation!

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

That's not permitted though. This is the framework that is permitted, and within which we can discuss the difference between "be yourself" and "just do what you want" in articles of appropriate word count as suggested by the editor:

> [Hobbes] foresaw the necessary idolatry of power itself by this new human type, that he would be flattered at being called a power-thirsty animal, although actually society would force him to surrender all his natural forces, his virtues and his vices, and would make him the poor meek little fellow who has not even the right to rise against tyranny, and who, far from striving for power, submits to any existing government and does not stir even when his best friend falls an innocent victim to an incomprehensible raison d'etat.

-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

We have this "open world sandbox", moot and harmless, utterly devoid of deep meaning, because it's all printed on stickers without any lasting adhesive, that can and will be removed without any trace or consequence. We may not have noticed this, but our brain did.

Most "thought" expressed in the 21st century stems from rationalizing around that elephant on the couch, that's what I think. When I come across a turtle on its back in a desert, I don't know quite know what to do, I never seem to be able to help and it's really stressing me out, but I know what I will NEVER do, I will never say "oh, I guess that's just what the turtle does, that's just how it walks, it's not dying, that's how it lives".

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