Wednesdays with Wanda: Philosophy

*Wanda's Theory of "Myself's" and "Me's"


Wanda Gág's fantastic diary from 100 years ago, Growing Pains, is peppered with descriptions like this one:

"Well, I didn't have as bad a time as I expected. In fact I had rather a good time. Mr. Gray behaved beautifully, and they were nice people that we visited- and we made candy and talked. I didn't have to haul out my Me's at all. Wasn't that nice?" (p. 327)

and this one,

"Oh, Myself, Myself, where are you? I am surrounded by Me's and Me's- bewildered Me's, wicked Me's, frivolous Me's and vindictive Me's- and I cannot feel you at all." (p. 223)

What is she talking about? Wanda Gág had this interesting way of looking at the world, whereby everyone is divided into two selves:

1. Myself

The first self is the Myself, the true self, the self that you are, really, inside. When you are able to live as your "myself," you find yourself to be quite happy and in your element. The Myself is stable and constant. It is always there, but sometimes hidden.

2. Me

The second self is the Me. The Me is often required to deal with social situations wherein it would not be entirely prudent to one's Myself. The Me takes care of the physical needs in life, the Me articulates, the Me often deals with the problems of the real world. We couldn't really live without the Me. The Me is also the superficial self with superficial desires. If one gets lost being the Me all of the time, one loses one's true Myself and one cannot be happy. But if one were to be Myself all of the time, then one's superficial needs would go unmet, and one could not be happy that way, either. The Me's and the Myself need to live in balance.

The Me surrounds the Myself. She draws a diagram:

Gág discusses the "Myself" and "Me" with Armand, but I believe it was her original theory. And, as Maria Popova points out, Gág came up with this theory of the different selves in 1914, before Freud published his theories about the Ego, the Id, and and Superego. Wanda Gág was twenty-one in 1914.

It still feels relevant, one hundred years later. If you look at the goals of something like meditation, it seems to be to get in touch with the Myself. (Remember, the Me articulates, it thinks, but the Myself just is.) I like blogging because I can take time to explore the "Myself," and explain things in great detail. (Although Gág felt it was always the Me who was the writer, I disagree! I think sometimes, the Myself speaks through art and writing, especially when we are really in the flow and in touch with our muses. It's a paradox, isn't it? If the Myself never ever speaks to us, how do we know it is there?  I wish I could talk with Wanda Gág about it. She did enjoy debates. Séance, anyone?)

I dislike Twitter because I feel that it's entirely full of Me's, Me's, and more Me's, Me's everywhere! How could anyone ever reach their Myself with 140 characters? I suppose I could go on about many things being too Me-Centered. Much of modern life seems to be littered with Me's just taking over, everywhere, ignoring the Myself's entirely.

One person on the internet not too involved with the Me's is Maria Popova. Maria Popova interprets the "Me's" and "Myself's" a bit more in an article here, if you are interested in reading ten minutes more. If you are very interested, I recommend that you read Growing Pains.



* I'm quite insecure, writing this, because my Bad-Assed Husband has a degree in Philosophy. In marriage, we all have our roles, and my role has never been the philosopher! But here it is.

Maria Popova and I Believe in the Value of Positive News

When I was a teacher, I learned of a theory- and I'm sorry I don't remember the source- that doing what we are good at makes us better at the things we are not good at. For example, children who read below grade level, but who like music, learn to read better if you put them in music classes for several hours of the day. When they get around to reading class, they're in a happier frame of mind and learn better. (This might seem obvious, but we always did the opposite in education- put kids who don't read well in extra reading classes, and make them skip music!)

Then there was this other study that found that children who were only praised in a classroom learned better than those who were both praised and criticized. The study found that, at least with children, criticism didn't do any good at all.

And so I tried, somewhat successfully, though not all the time- to rephrase my criticisms into praise for the things the students had done correctly. It seemed kind of insane, sometimes. I mean, if a kid can't spell "because," shouldn't I point that out? Yes, I couldn't help myself. I crossed out "cuz" and wrote "because" on those papers, every time. But verbally, at least, I did make sure and praise constantly. And I think it has come to shape my world view. Not that I never criticize anyone- ask my husband and daughter. I'm a terrible person. But I still have this idea that what you focus on becomes your life. It becomes your reality.

So, if what you focus on or pay attention to becomes "reality," ["reality" should always be in quotes] we should try and focus on positive things, right? Imagine my delight when I got my weekly update for Brain Pickings' Maria Popova this week, and realized she agrees with me, completely. Popova, (autocorrect keeps trying to make her a popover!) who normally reviews other people's writings, has come up with some deep original thought. It's "original" in the sense that she wrote it first, but darned if I haven't thought it all myself, already! Which just goes to show why I love Maria Popova, she who articulates that which I feel and think myself.

Read Popova's remarkable essay about the meaning of life and the role of the media here. 

from Brain Pickings

Two People Who Make the Internet Better

I dropped the ball this month on my "blog of the month" award! I'm sorry. But I've been thinking about my rule of not giving it to anyone who is too popular. And I stand by it, because my whole purpose in the blog of the month is to popularize little known blogs. However, there are two blogs that are amazing and also amazingly popular, and I would just like to recognize them, here and now.

Maria Popova
The first is Brain Pickings. Maria Popova reads and reads and reads and reads, and then she processes this information, and she writes and writes and writes and writes. She just picks out the best, most relevant quotes from the books that she reads, and writes little essays about them. I wouldn't say she reviews them. She basically only writes about good books. A lot of the books she reads are really old. Most of the stuff she reads and writes about is somehow to related to the meaning of life. Her web site never fails to fascinate me. Today, she has an article up about Susan Sontag's essay, "Against Interpretation," which very much relates to one of my favorite themes, "What is art?"

Popova teams up with artists who make these beautiful illustrations,
which compliment her articles, like this one by Wendy McNaughton.

I would recommend signing up for Popova's weekly newsletter, and reading it. It's just lovely. It always makes me think about things in new ways. Art, life... everything.


Doug Muder
The second too popular blog (but amazing in every way blog) is The Weekly Sift by Doug Muder. Muder also reads and reads and reads and reads, and processes the information, and then he writes and writes and writes and writes. But Muder reads current events. It's basically a news blog. Muder takes the news of the past week and analyzes it. His slant is most definitely liberal, but even if you aren't liberal, I encourage you to give him a try. Sometimes I honestly don't know what to make of things going on, and then I read what he's written, and everything is much, much clearer. This doesn't sound like the greatest review, but I mean it to be. When I read the news I just feel like going and crawling into a hole somewhere and expiring of my own existential angst at the HORROR, but if I read it in the Weekly Sift, I feel more hopeful. Although, honestly, Muder doesn't really seem all that hopeful. Let's just say he puts things in perspective, one week at a time.

Muder often includes charts like this one, to help us understand the news.

Muder also has a "subscribe" button.