What do people mean by "losing" or "finding" themselves?

[RobLJ]

This reminds me of the quote from Vonnegut's protagonist in Mother Night, who is an American on Nazi propoganda radio who is "actually" an American spy (Howard Campbell--I may forget the exact name), but that "identity" doesn't work out after the collapse of Hitler since he isn't recognized by the US as their "agent."

The quote: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." I read this in high school, along with God Bless You, Mr Rosewater and Cats Cradle, but the quote made a lasting impact.
It is possible that we lose who we are when we pretend, passively or actively, to be what we are not.
To OP:

I suspect the original might be a person who is in the process of redefining him/herself--whether externally, financially or psychologically--in reaction to their former familiar, cultural, or personal social "identity".
As a person who seemed self-consciously and in perpetuity redefining myself, it doesn't seem to apply to me, but I defined myself pretty much in opposition to my circumstances, even though I thought my parents to be fine people (and still do--we just didn't see "eye to eye," religiously or on many other things). And, yes, people who know my father and grandfather see strikingly similar personality characteristics to myself, so I'm not completely clear that the putative redefinition "took," completely.

As an elongation of Nietzsche's "When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you", is it unfeasible to imagine that, when you're putting on an act, that the act is also 'putting on you'?

Me? I dunno...I'm like Popeye....a herbaceous tuber....."I Yam What I Yam".

 

[PoorOldCountryBoy]

Yet another one of this type of post on FB...mystifying me yet again.

"Of all the roads she's traveled, the journey back to herself was the most magnificent."

What do people mean by words like this? What does "losing yourself" or "finding yourself" mean?

Actually, I've wondered about this all my life. While I don't always like everything about myself, and certainly haven't liked some of the situations I've found myself in - I never felt as if I didn't know exactly who I was. The whole idea, to me, is weird.

Is it just some coded reference to addiction and recovery?

Many things in FB are pretty solipsistic. Or maybe my boomer is showing...

 

[JoeWras]

Many things in FB are pretty solipsistic. Or maybe my boomer is showing...

No, it isn't. You are fine, Boomer. It is a common complaint by all generations, believe it or not.

BTW, thank you for giving me a word of the day. Had to look it up. It describes FB pretty well.

 

[NW-Bound]

Every day here I read tales of the multitudes eager to retire from their soul killing dilbert-esqe evil "megacorps"

Yup, just doing what they have to do. But wait. Why not go work for a small co where you really are a person? I know the dough ain't as good.

So there. Millions of people lost in megacorps of their own choice.

To borrow from the thread, I did leave the soul-killing megacorp to find myself. It was disappointing to find out that I was not a good entrepreneur as I had hoped to be.

In finding myself, I lost quite a bit of money. I could have "found myself" while twiddling thumbs at megacorp, and kept the pay, and the pension, and the 401k.

 

[SkisALot]

If you have ever been to the mountains and felt like I did, the following song applies to a greatly to this thread;

Rocky Mountain High
John Denver
He was born in the summer of his 27th year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He left yesterday behind him, you might say he was born again
You might say he found a key for every door
When he first came to the mountains his life was far away
On the road and hanging by a song
But the string's already broken and he doesn't really care
. . .

I love John Denver. I understand what he is saying because I've lived it. I recently moved from the ski area that I lived at since college (I'm an old woman now.), but my soul will always be in the mountains. (And yes, I do know who I am.)
thank you for posting this song.

 

[DrRoy]

I gave up on trying to add anything about being lost, because I guess I never really have been. I totally get the mountain thing though, as my tag line says:
.

 

[Pellice]

People have a lot of ways of estranging themselves from how they really think and feel, or what they really want or prefer. The list of defenses against internal discomfort (which can come from recognition of these thoughts/feelings/desires) is a mile long. By engaging, usually unconsciously, in those defenses, people become estranged from themselves, i.e., from what they really feel, think, want, like, prefer, etc. They lose touch with it.

It's a complex subject. There are many, many ways to lose touch with who you are. It's not always defense. Sometimes it's idealization, i.e., imagining yourself to be better than you really are. Sometimes it's simple busyness and distraction or a chronic external focus. Sometimes it's lack of self-awareness. Sometimes it's about trying to shape yourself for others.

But, Eddie, most here on this forum seem to be fully aware that the way they "really think and feel" differs from the way they have to act. That gap seems to be behind a large number of FIRE stories (the oft-described "BS Bucket." In many cases in the workplace it's a healthy, conscious decision to PRETEND we are on board with the latest system change at the same time we are telling our families what a crock it is. It's frustrating to act differently than we feel like acting, but it is a prudent, rational decision, particularly when we remind ourselves that the matter isn't life and death and that we do not have enough control of various kinds to assert our own wishes.

Roxana, the harem girl in Montesquieu's novel Persian Letters writes

No: I have lived in slavery, and yet always retained my freedom: I have remodeled your laws upon those of nature; and my mind has always maintained its independence. ...

Well, her next step was suicide, but that distinction between mind and body was important back in the Enlightenment.

As for me, I wasn't lost, but FIRE allowed me to catch up with myself.