The way I interpret the writing is that if one understands who she is then the act of pleasing herself is meaningless "doing" that would never cross her mind in

The way I interpret the writing is that if one understands who she is then the act of pleasing herself is meaningless "doing" that would never cross her mind in the first place. I really don't think there is anything in the writing that promotes/suggests the "please yourself pop culture" you mentioned; in fact, I don't think there is anything in the writing about pleasing oneself at all. The closest thing that I can imagine is consider that you are on a hike alone and all of a sudden you feel the urge to play a tune. You take out your ocarina and just naturally play a tune. When you are done you simply continue hiking. You didn't play the tune to please yourself and you didn't play the tune to please an audience—you simply played because it felt like the most natural thing to do that moment, and it's good because of that. > I personally believe that you can't truly know yourself unless you also invest in others so you know them well enough to contrast who you are and are not. I tend to disagree with this. I personally think that you can't understand yourself through contrast with who others are (not least because you can never understand others better than they understand themselves)—that way you are simply creating an image yourself based on the opinions you have on other people, not because you are just being you because you understand yourself.