Is there a real you? This might seem to you like a very odd question. Because, you might ask, how do we find the real you, how do you know what the real you is? And so forth.

真实的你存在吗？ 也许对你来说这是一个 奇怪的问题。 因为你可能会问， 我们怎么寻找真实的自己， 而你又如何知道什么才是 真实的自己呢？ 诸如此类。

But the idea that there must be a real you, surely that's obvious. If there's anything real in the world, it's you. Well, I'm not quite sure. At least we have to understand a bit better what that means. Now certainly, I think there are lots of things in our culture around us which sort of reinforce the idea that for each one of us, we have a kind of a core, an essence. There is something about what it means to be you which defines you, and it's kind of permanent and unchanging. The most kind of crude way in which we have it, are things like horoscopes. You know, people are very wedded to these, actually.People put them on their Facebook profile as though they are meaningul, you even know your Chinese horoscope as well. There are also more scientific versions of this, all sorts of ways of profiling personality type, such as the Myers-Briggs tests, for example. I don't know if you've done those. A lot of companies use these for recruitment. You answer a lot of questions, and this is supposed to reveal something about your core personality. And of course, the popular fascination with this is enormous. In magazines like this, you'll see, in the bottom left corner, they'll advertise in virtually every issue some kind of personality thing. And if you pick up one of those magazines, it's hard to resist, isn't it? Doing the test to find what is your learning style, what is your loving style, or what is your working style? Are you this kind of person or that?

不过一定存在一个真实的你， 这个想法显然是成立的。如果这个世界存在什么真实的事物，那就是你。不过，我其实没那么确定。 至少我们要对这个问题 理解的深入一些。 当然，我认为 我们周围的文化中有很多东西 或多或少都强化了这样一种想法， 那就是我们当中的每一个人 都具备一个核心，一种本质。 存在一些能够定义你的东西， 使你成为你自己，它是永恒不变的。 其中有一些很不精确的方式， 比如星座，等等。 事实上人们对这些相当痴迷。 把它们放在脸书资料里， 就好像这些东西很有意义似的， 你甚至还知道自己的生肖属相。 还有更多具有科学性的版本， 各种各样定义人格类型的方法， 比如像麦尔斯-布里格斯性格分类测试。 不知道你们有没有做过这个。 很多公司把这种测试用在招聘中。 你要回答很多问题， 以此来揭示你的某些核心人格。当然，这些测试是相当流行的。 在这类的杂志中，你可以看到 几乎在每一刊的左下角， 都有这类性格测试的广告。 一旦你拿起这种杂志， 就很难抗拒，不是么？ 用这些测试来找出你的学习模式， 你的恋爱模式， 还有你的工作模式。 比如你是哪种类型的人？