"**What’s unusual about Just Be Yourself isn’t that it’s questionable or infuriating advice, but that it’s so meaningless, and in a curiously profound way**. "First, there’s the problem of who you ‘really’ are. (Indeed, ‘be yourself’ is one translation of an old [[zen]] koan, an instruction designed to blow the minds of trainee [[Buddhist]] monks because it can’t be processed intellectually. **The whole point of koans is that they make no rational sense, which makes you wonder if recycling them as glib dating tips is wise.**) "Second, even if you know who you are, **trying to act that way is impossible: as soon as you actively attempt to be genuine, you’re being fake by definition**. Nor can you leapfrog the paradox by deciding not to try; that’s just another form of trying." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[koans]], [[counter-intuitive-thinking]], [[fresh-startism]] **Source** -- [[20241114100017 - B - Help!]]