Who are you?

I can't stand the type of pompous, uber-egotistical writing that is in The New Yorker.  Like this article. However, I agree with Kathryn Schultz in her point.  The point being that self help is mostly filled with hacks and charlatans because to help the self, one must understand what the self is...otherwise what are you helping? And 99% of the "Life Coaches" out there don't have their shit together but feel that telling other people what to do makes them happy.

She concludes on the favorable side of self help because while there may be a "umptebajillion," ideas out there, at least they are putting out ideas as to what the self is.  Like most The New Yorker writers, her elitist arrogance seated in "higher order" rational thinking is also the reason she can't find the self.

The self is more than just your rational thought, masculine brain.  It includes our emotions, feelings, behaviors and reactions, which to this day have not been localized in the brain.  What this boils down to the separation between the brain and the mind.  A rationalist will kick and scream at the idea of a "mind" that is not in the physical brain.  Yet, science has had to alter course a little bit in the past few years because neurologists aren't able to explain psychological processes even though they can tell you in detail how the machine works.

Hence, a new branch of neurology, (with the backing of the scientific community) called Neuropsychology. 

1. Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviors. It is seen as a clinical and experimental field of psychology that aims to study, assess, understand and treat behaviors directly related to brain functioning.

Like most "intelligent" people, only using the brain to solve everything is futile, as the answers you seek aren't answerable by the brain.  I could be 1000% wrong but Kathryn Schultz's article does not look like the writing of a happy person who loves life.

I once asked myself 100 questions in one sitting. 70% of them were pertaining to the same subject: "How do I feel more?"  While I finally found the answers I laugh at the irony of using the brain to understand feelings.  

If your in the camp that this type of cold, rational thought is all there is to "intelligence," and you don't walk around loving life and aren't consistently happy on a daily basis (which almost no one in this country is), I invite you try one thing.  If you want to know who you are, stop thinking!

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