A father said to a son:
“How strange be the mortal notion of, self-esteem;
the more educated, and cultured a man be,
the more importance he gives thereto;
the bucolic, unsophisticated people of the world have no such concept  --
a man must be truly civilized to afford such a concern about himself
(such a non health related concern).
In the city (that area of the brain’s consciousness emblematic of
humanity’s general, collective condition) a man’s self-esteem is held to be
a decisive factor in not only how well he succeeds in the locale’s public activities (ranging from business to the arts),
but also in how well he manages to live internally with himself
(‘himself’ being his so-called, self-image).
 

The brain of ordinary men, amidst its activity men call consciousness,
produces not only lineally appearing and disappearing,
specifically identifiable and separate thoughts,
but also a never ceasing, non specifically located sensation that there is a
someone in the brain who is doing the thinking.
All standard thinking in man is inseparably connected to this normally unanalyzed,
un thought-about impression,
and only if asked about it directly will a man’s mind turn and glance for an instant
at this situation within itself, and from such uncommon moments come the terms: self-image, and self-esteem.
When the mind-of-thoughts is running automatically (as is its norm when not engaged in survival related matters)
a man has no specific conscious sense of a self in his brain doing the thinking  --
for all practical purposes  --  the activity IS simply a mechanical process
not unlike the beating of the heart  --
unless he intentionally interrupts his perfunctory flow of  thoughts,
and thus for a moment creates an uncommon situation whereby consciousness
has nothing to do but be aware of itself
(and the tail end of the mechanical train of thoughts that just a second ago, stopped) –
mental attention is for an instant, left alone with itself, and this, 'itself'
is what the brain suggested men call their self,
and once they had this, self, they had to nourish and care for it,
and the biggest concern for its welfare quickly became identified as the problem of, self-esteem   --  seemingly a question of: what does this thought-self think OF itself?
 

Seen thus (as, and, for what it is) is the strangeness I mentioned:
a thought passing judgment on itself.
Ordinary men of course would describe it as: them thinking about themselves,
but their selves exist only as a neural phenomenon  --  a thought;
if a man is not intentionally thinking about him having an intangible inner self  --
he has none; more accurately: if he is not thinking about having a self, he has none,  since it exists only in a thought, it appears to him in his mind only when he
specifically thinks about it, and thus brings it on stage.
Humanity as a whole (with miniscule exceptions) lives in such a condition  --
their consciousness part of such a situation;
it is man’s normal mental state, and one in which all of the marvels of technology,
and culture are produced,
and any ordinary man who sees flaws therein is blind.
There is most assuredly nothing amiss with normal men and their normal thoughts operating in the way described, and via thus, experiencing the sensation of their thinking being actually carried out by a self  --  which is them --
operating inside their head.
This self is felt naturally by normal men to be of such importance that not only
should they be continually concerned about how others perceive it
(to be socially fit, and potentially successful in the public arena),
but also felt of pressing significance is how one sees one’s own self  --
and we speak not of one’s physical self (one’s body),
but the self that cannot be seen;
the self that is only known by what it says, and how it explains the body’s behavior
in non essential activity.
But as is well observed, men commonly do tie their physical appearance to
their so-called, self-esteem, saying for instance,
that their expansive girth causes them to despise their self,
and though ordinary men make no distinction,
such thoughts about one’s body are totally unlike thoughts about one’s mind;
thought’s criticism, even condemnation of some feature of one’s body is a thing, completely different from thought’s censure of features of one’s mind,
and truth let out: the complaints men’s thoughts have with themselves are taken to be of a more serious order than those it may have regarding the body they are in;
for one thing: you can apparently do something about the fat that shows up around your waist, but what can you do about the thoughts that show up in your mind?
Men vociferously say  --  ‘Much!  --  there is much you can do to affect your thinking!’ --
and counseling, analysis, and the endless forms of, self-help methods
publicly bear out the claim,
yet nothing works  --   things are not arranged for ordinary men to
see and accept that nothing works here, (or as always my boy, in the alternative view: men are forced to pretend they are not aware of it),
and it is a staggeringly beautiful circumstance:
thoughts, which both can do nothing  --  literally,
yet have no limits of what they do  --  intangibly,
can be told (let us say) that they are red in color
(which in truth, they are nothing in color, or anything else measurable),
and they can reply without in any way doing harm to reality and the truth that
to the contrary, they are green, which cannot be disproved since they have no color,
and thoughts, not surprisingly,
tend to accept their version of the meaningless dispute.
A thought is told it is fat  --  the thought says: ‘No  --   I am slim,’
and by god!  --   slim it is,
ergo my noting that in this matter: nothing works.

Thoughts, when they are involved in thinking about the intangible,
thought-only, special world of man (which is all we are ever talking about here)
are not amenable-to  --  are not subject-to anything remotely resembling objective-criticism  --  there is nothing there capable of being objectively measured, weighed, tested, as are matters in the physical world,
thus thought being unable to make an unbiased judgement of itself,
it obviously follows that it is incapable of changing itself.
If a man’s negative thoughts about his waistline become sufficiently intense, thought will override stomach’s appetite, reduce caloric intake, causing fat to be shed --
but what can thought do about itself? --
and collaterally (for those who can see and individually think) –
what can thought-self do about ITSELF?
Since any thought that just shows up in the mind is impotent to do-anything
about itself  -- about its nature, the information it carries, its very existence --
no self-imaged, self can do anything about itself (other than as already noted:
SAY that it can --  which constructively settles the matter as far as it is concerned).
Put simply lad: a self-image can no nothing about itself,
thus its esteem, or lack thereof for itself is......what should we term it?....is, is, meaningless sufficient?  --   actually, no,
for meaningless implies that there is a meaning-FUL version possible
of the matter being discussed, whereas here  --  there is not.
What can a shadow meaningfully say, or know about itself?
 

My boy, concern over self-esteem is a natural, necessary facet of city life,
but for the nascent rebel it is  --  poison;
a neural pollutant that muddies up completely the very place in the brain
from which he needs draw the uncommon nourishment necessary
to have his consciousness expand into areas of the brain outside the normal
city-limits of collective man.
A rebel with any self-esteem is stuck;
it matters not the type of esteem: positive, negative, or anything else:
you have self esteem  --  you have a problem  --  and indeed,
something worse than a mere, real problem  --
you have a problem that (outside your own mind) is not real;
a real problem (like fat on your hips, or a brick on your foot),
you can do something about,
but a problem that is not THERE  --  is not somewhere that you can put your hands on,
well! --
may we be so presumptuous as to suggest that such a problem presents
a challenge that may  --  I hate to say it, but ---  may be insurmountable!
(even Sisyphus couldn’t get over an imaginary hill).
 

Self-esteem is only important to people who in fact, have no actual self
(not as, self is known to a man who has realized what is really going on);
self-esteem is a cover up for not having a self.
It is not without pith to say that only the dense have self-esteem;
that anyone with self-esteem is a fool, which are but pejorative ways of saying that
a man with self-esteem is a perfectly normal person
who has no thoughts reflective of what is really going on in life
anymore than does a slug;
you cannot have both self-esteem and understanding;
embracing and being embraced by this, self-of-the-mind
uses up all of the space where understanding could appear;
it is as though you have a, never-mentioned-to-you choice:
either have self-esteem  --  or have: understanding  --  but not both.
 

If your brain expends energy on self esteem --
the attempted evaluation of a thing that exists only in its own thoughts  --
it will have not the wherewithal then to pursue the special goal of interest to
our obscure branchlet on the human family tree.
You cannot then be a practicing rebel, and have the independence of mind required to finally realize what is actually going on in the thing men call, their life --
your standard old mental-self  can never grasp this --
only a new neural-you can do so,
a fresh you that you somehow have nourished in yourself amidst the routine thoughts that ordinarily and automatically appear in your brain;
only a non collectively based you-in-your-brain which replaces the normally controlling, self, or, self-image, of self-esteem fame  --
can lead you to the place everyone in the rebel family wants to go.
 

See, this is why only the totally untalented have to be concerned over the problem of, humility;
only the completely stupid (to be theatrical) are bothered by the question of their, vanity  --  simply put: only idiots are vain  --  having quite high, self-esteem.
 

What feeling of self importance can have a man who realizes what is going on? --
what vanity has an eye for its ability to see?   --   do you see, my son?  --
have you looked where I have pointed  to today?  --   in your head?”