The first man who ever blinked at his reflection in a puddle, imagine him. What did he find so captivating? Was it worship of self, as he was born, or was there a recognition of the flaws he needs to overcome: the progress made and yet to be made? This tale is about that most insidious of modern delusions: the belief that we are simply as we are born, and that our imperfections, far from being failures, are somehow good, internally especial. A darkly curious notion, this! For if we are truly as we are with no will-be, then what becomes of the virtues? What becomes of the very idea of becoming? And what becomes of the joyous dance of self-discovery that is at the heart of all true growth? Where does the idea of will and willpower go? Is this not slavery in a shiny new wrapper?

No mincing of words. This myth was not born in some single moment of confusion, but rather in a slow, creeping rot of thought that crept into our minds like ivy over a crumbling wall. It always was but rose with modernity, that curious era when humanity decided to stop looking at the eternity within instead turn outward into the material world of scintillating flesh and pleasures, whispering, “We are what we are, we were born to be what we are now without any change, and have fune” and anyone who tries to change another, especially for the better, is cast as some villain. Like a child who insists on wearing a hat made of glue, all cling to this idea with the fervour of a maniacal tiger clutching a baby panda in its teeth.

You see, dear reader, the myth of immutable selfness is not born of wisdom but of false comfort. It whispers sweet nothings to those who fear change, who dabble in the darkening arts of denial, and who would rather be “personally authentic” as imperfect personality than oriented fully toward complete truth. For what is this modern falsely liberal idea of ‘authenticity’ to ‘self,’ if not the practice of pretending that flaws are irremovable, or perhaps even valuable and to be proud of? What is “being yourself” without any progress, if not the coward’s way of refusing things at first considered difficult?

This myth took root in the fertile soil of modern psychology, where certain schools of thought declared that our traits are fixed, immutable as the stars; deifying the self. Some even took it further, designating even behaviour to be as sacred as selfness. Of course an unrepentant sinner would take to such a philosophy, like a swan to water. But of course this is a graduate course in manipulation toward destruction of good, because if people cannot improve or change, everything is hopeless outside of hedonistic self-glorification, and so there we are. They told us that we are born with certain “personality types”: the introverts, the extroverts, the analytical minds, the emotional ones; and that these are just who we are written in stone. And so, we were taught to stop trying to change, to stop striving for improvement, and instead to embrace our “authentic” ‘selves,’ even if those ‘selves’ are little more than the sum of flaws, which is all there can be without good and progress.

Also let us not mistake this for harmless indulgence. There is no fad about this. It is a religion as old as heresy itself; a cult of personalities that worships the idea we are finished products, never to be improved upon further. And it has done terrible things to our souls. For what is the soul if not a garden, and what is a garden if not something to be tended? If we stop tending it, it withers into a thicket of weeds, and the beauty of bloom is lost forever.