How can we create a personality we desire?

How can we create a personality we desire?

Personal heroism by means of individualism is a task requiring courage and self-confidence. Courage and self-confidence are characteristics of few sapiens, young or old. It is a path less traveled because it imposes terrifying burdens; these burdens display themselves by isolation from the common herd. “This move exposes the person to the sense of being completely crushed and annihilated because he sticks out so much, has to carry so much in himself.”

Personal heroism demands that one exposes her self, i.e. s/he sticks out dramatically from the herd. Those creative types who expose themselves so must create their own justification. Herein we find something that may seem illogical “the more you develop as a distinctive free and critical human being, the more guilt you have. Your very work accuses you; it makes you feel inferior. What right do you have to play God?” By what authority do you presume to introduce new meaning into the world?

Otto Rank was a colleague of Freud and, like Jung, carried theories far beyond those which Freud created. “Freud’s reality psychology emphasized essentially the influence of outer factor, of the outer milieu, upon the development of the individual and the formation of character,…I [was] opposed to this biological principle, the spiritual principle which alone is meaningful in the development of the essentially human.”

For Freud the id is the nucleus of being and it, the id, is subject to the natural laws. In such a frame the personality consists of layers of identification that “form the basis of the parental super-ego.” This might be properly considered to be the spiritual structure of the average individual, i.e. the average personality results from the natural influences developed against the naturally evolved super-ego.

Such a theory accounts for the average but does not account for the two creative extremes: the creative type and the so-called “neurotic” type. I would label the average personality to be a reactive individual; an individual who goes with the flow.

There are two personality types that make up the proactive personality: one creative type squeezes him or her self into a tight ball in reaction to the inner and outer milieu, i.e. the so-called “neurotic” and the second creative type who creates a personality wherein the ego “is strong just in the degree to which it [i]is[i] the representative of this primal force and the strength of this force represented in the individual we call will.”

This second creative type, which Rank identifies as the creative type while he identifies the other creative type as the “neurotic”, creates “voluntarily from the impulsive elements and moreover to develop his standards beyond the identifications of the super-ego morality to an ideal formation which consciously guides and rules this creative will in terms of the personality.”

“The essential point in this process is the fact that he evolves his ego ideal from himself, not merely on the ground of the given but also of self-chosen factors which he strives after consciously.”

Quotes from Will Therapy and Truth and Reality by Otto Rank

I don't get the connection between desiring to be x and the need for bravery or standing out from the herd. Maybe for some personality journeys it might be necessary, for instance if one wants to be a Kantian moralist and tell the truth in every situation, dangerous or insensitive included. But other personality goals can still be good, or even better (sorry Kant) and remain safe options. Surely it is not necessary to endanger oneself or to be eccentric, just to self actualise or whetever it is called. There are plenty of personality types that are, in the context of Hollywood and the popular press, unadventurous and even plain boring, but they are desirable all the same. So what if they don't make lucrative press? The image of virtuous rebellion - the unorthodox hero - is something that might sell a flim like Hurt Locker, but in reality it can be fallacy to equate the bohemian spirit with the ideal self or something to be strived for. I think that it is even insulting to the common people to imagine that we have to break free from their norms somehow in order to become worthy of self respect. Of course, common people have their faults, but so do all. Lets not forget their virtues. There is an image in my mind of an independent hero - too much like Hollywood for me. It is often the quietest and least visible that have the wisest and most practical lives. These are deeper virtues in my eyes.

Although deviation may not in itself be wrong, and it might even be good to differ at times, I think that the cult of the heroic individual can be as blinding as it is inspiring, because 2: it often inspires in the wrong way. I think that individualist paradigms can lead us to neglect a vital strenght of humanity: the ability to share responsibility and learn to humbly work together, rather than go it alone like some kind of impossible dream of a superman or pop idol going for personal glory. Many hands make light work. Every institution requires teamwork and an adoption of culture - a shared way of life rather than uniqueness - and institutions are more powerful than individuals even if they are less glamerous. The Chinese even go so far as to call the ant the "righteous insect". Plese, I pray, don't let our egos get in the way of progress!