The Art of 'Unselfing'
An hour into my trek, with the sun beating hard on me and the thorns from the dry grassland chaffing my bare legs, I ask myself the question. “Why am I doing this?”
I persevere and advance into the savannah-covered plains and a smallish forest. Then I climb up one of the five hills that make up “The Shai Hills Reserve,” a 51 square kilometre forest reserve close to Accra and an hour’s drive from my house.
The guide tells me to ignore the shrieks of the baboons that populate the reserve. They are not close at all. I relax and, within an hour, ascend to the summit of a small hill, arriving at several large granite boulders. I follow the guide’s path, pull myself up, and sprawl on the highest flat spot available.
I sit down to take it all in. I look down at the grassland below and the hazy horizon ahead of me. I’m lost for a few minutes. The baboon shrieks echo around me and mix with the sound of leaves rustling from the trees below, hypnotising me.
There is a slight breeze that strokes my neck and face, further extending my bliss.
I spent the next fifteen minutes thinking of nothing. I had no intention of meditating, but somehow, nature forced it on me.
Now, one idea dominates my thoughts: it took me almost 150 minutes of struggle to reach this isolated spot and only 15 minutes for me to lose myself in its bliss.
The Strange Gift of Losing Yourself
That moment reminded me of something the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch spent her life exploring.
Murdoch (1919–1999) was one of those rare minds who could write both sharp moral philosophy and wild, imaginative novels. Her 26 books — The Bell, The Black Prince, The Sea, The Sea — are filled with characters constantly wrestling with their own egos, illusions, and desires.
And one of her big ideas was what she called “unselfing.”
Murdoch believed that most of our suffering comes from being trapped in the “fat, relentless ego” — the part of the mind that never stops narrating, worrying, defending, comparing. The self that always makes everything about itself.
But beauty, she said, can break that spell.
Not beauty in the superficial sense, but the kind that pulls you out of your own head — a landscape, a painting, a moment in nature, a flash of colour on a bird’s wing. Anything that draws your attention outward, away from your ego’s constant chatter.
In The Sovereignty of Good, she offers one of the clearest descriptions of this:
“I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind…
Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel.
In a moment everything is altered.
The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared.
There is nothing now but kestrel…
And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important.”
That is unselfing.
The ego collapses. Beauty takes over. And reality — clean, unfiltered reality — returns.
Why These Moments Matter
What happened to me on that hill wasn’t planned. It wasn’t a meditation session. It wasn’t a goal. It was simply nature doing what it does when you give it enough time and enough attention.
It empties you.
For a moment, you stop being the person with problems, deadlines, identity, and ambition. You’re just a witness. A pair of eyes. A body breathing on a rock.
And when the self comes back — because it always does — it feels lighter. Less dramatic. Less convinced of its own importance.
Exactly as Murdoch describes.
The Real Good Life Might Begin Here
We spend so much time trying to “find ourselves.”
Murdoch suggests something different: sometimes we need to lose ourselves first.
Not permanently. Not escapism.
Just enough to see clearly again.
A kestrel.
A view from a hill in Shai Hills.
A moment where the wind erases your thoughts.
These aren’t luxuries. They’re reminders.
The world is still bigger than whatever problem is screaming in your mind.
And beauty, when it hits you at the right moment, can still pull you back to what’s real.
Maybe the good life isn’t about constant self-improvement.
Maybe it’s about learning how to step out of the self long enough to remember that you’re alive.