I think on the definition of "homo sapiens", or rather, the translation of it "same as me". Funny, isn't it, that we define humans as "same as me"? This means, then, that because I am unique, and nobody can be the same as me, that none of you are human. I am the only human, and no one else can be human because no one is the same as me. But of course, to another point of view, the same is true. If I were someone else, then I would still be the only human, for the same reason. Strange then that you would also be able to say you are the only human because none is the same as you. Too bad the definition is "same as me" because you don't matter. Only me. Thus I study psychology to understand the ways of the people, who are not homo sapiens but simply an entity or group of entities other than me. This does not mean I am psychopathic or anything like that; merely that I have the wisdom to see a flaw in our language that is often overlooked. Strange, this is exactly the sort of flaw that would cause me so much trouble in school. I would follow directions to the letter when I was meant to follow the spirit and to the spirit when meant to follow the letter. It is my basic misunderstanding of intentions that caused me to fail so many assignments. I was not meant to learn how to do something but what to do in order to get it done. I’ll not bother explaining the difference; you'll just have to get it wrong.
It’s funny how humans seem to always search for the one basic thing that explains everything. This I believe to be folly. It’s true that according to Occam’s razor, the simpler explanation must be more true. It’s just that I find the simplest explanation to be admitting the complexity of something. All the theories of psychology address a different aspect of the human experience. Why can't they all be partially right and partially wrong? Why can't we figure out why one part of a theory works while another doesn't? I say throw out the garbage and look at what we know to be true and functional. After that, we can start to sew together the scraps into a quilt of ideas more complete than any of the "all inclusive" theories were to begin with. It’s absolutely amazing what we do know about ourselves if we throw out all the outdated and frankly disproved ideas. It all fits, really. When I take all the things I have learned, all the things I know, and salt away the fat, I am left with an honestly disturbing and yet strangely beautiful idea of the universe. I won't go into it here; it will take an entire book to explain how it all interrelates. Chaos is a beautiful thing.
It's too bad that school is such a mystery to me, or rather, the teaching methods and attitudes of some people, and my difficulties with homework. I have given thought to the matters leading up to these current problems and found that there are a small number of common themes. First among these right now is the idea of backbone. I define this term as the opposite of spinelessness, the willingness, ability and action of standing up for oneself and others in the name of one's own values and beliefs. I also have a strong distrust for authority. On top of all that I love to learn new things but quickly lose interest if it feels forced on me.
In kindergarten I was known as a bulldog to my teacher, because I would not let a subject drop until I had decided it was over. I would fight over things that to my teacher had been concluded and otherwise taken care of. This, of course, seems to have been somewhat of a theme in itself. I did not think much of it at the time, but now I recognize that it seems to mean that I was thinking of things in their entirety, and not just of those important aspects related to the immediate moment.
Later, whenever I would get into an argument with a teacher, there was some injustice or other that would bother me, or some detail in some directions that I disagreed with or whatever, but the end result was always the same. I would be told that I had to listen to the teacher because she was the authority and I had no rights to say anything against her. Every time I would get in trouble at school, I would of course be punished in some way. It’s only natural. There were repercussions at home, in addition to the punishment at school. I was often grounded for things I had done at school, for my exasperated teachers had given my mom the idea that school punishments were not enough and should be paired with punishment at home. It never occurred to my mom that my account of an incident might have some truth to it, because the teacher was the authority figure and always had the last say.
The problem is that I never really understood what it was that I had done wrong. I never once started a fight. I don't think I’ve ever been the first to swing a fist, though I was often the first to connect. My fights never got beyond that first hit. I suppose I was disruptive, but there was ALWAYS, in my memory, some stimulus preceding it. Often there was name calling, or other argument. Usually it was an argument and didn't get past that. I have a loud voice, and I’m not afraid to use it. I was "out of control" in many different meanings of the phrase. I was constantly in trouble at school and had been "legally" labeled a trouble maker. I did not have many friends, it was too much fun to goad me into trouble and I never understood why people would be mean to each other. I know now that if I had responded in kind (with meanness) I would largely have had fewer problems. Instead I was hurt and didn't understand and so was never left alone. I had easily pushable "buttons" that would leave anyone but me safely out of the eyes of the teacher. It took me some eight or ten years, but I learned to defend myself from these sorts of things. This is where I get my idea of backbone, and why I simultaneously despise anyone without it. I could not defend myself, and others would not, so I suffered all the pain that came my way with very little buffer.
Today I am still the same person I was before I learned to defend myself from the world, but now those defenses are sometimes more in my way than they are helpful. I now have a hard time finding my internal motivation, and find myself putting up a heavy resistance to any but the most gentle and subtle external direction. More often I am able to force myself to do things I do not want to do, but usually the motivation comes from within and not from without. Or maybe that's not true and it's the other way around. Really I am confused about why things like dishes and homework require phenomenal effort to begin while tackling a project at work is less about overcoming internal barriers and more about dealing with a real situation. Perhaps it is that I have no or very little pain attached to anything I might do at work while school and chores carry emotional baggage that I cannot seem to be rid of easily. I excel the most at projects of my own choosing, though those are easily tainted by an external source and may lose their appeal after a time.
I am a student that loves to learn but cannot stand to do traditional class work (philosophy classes and other circumstances that require divergent thought are still fun to me, perhaps unaffected because of the nature of grade school subject material). I have always been a fairly active person, internally motivated and fascinated with everything around me. My favorite television shows when I was young were those that explained nature, and otherwise how things worked. I used to think I would be great at helping other people overcome psychological problems (hence the psych major), but I am beginning to think that this isn’t the best choice for me as I gain some personal experience in a classroom setting.
According to the traditional definitions, I would be a bad student as opposed to a good one because I rarely ever do any homework or reading of textbooks and often seem to annoy teachers and professors with my questions. Then again, I am approaching the end of my third year in college, so I must have done something right, even if it was a slight nod to conformity by doing just enough to not fail. I had thought all through school that there was something missing from my studies and I began to discover I wasn’t the only one thinking this way as articles are published in magazines and elsewhere suggesting that the teachers of the country and our education program in general is lacking exactly the types of things I identified on my way through it. My grades are generally bad, but I would be able to support that compared to a typical 4.0 student, I have had the better education.
I do a lot of reading and have read some of the books that some uneducated people would designate as harmful and candidates for banning. I take pride in having indulged in such "explicit" material for it does indeed explicitly outline the dire conditions of ignorance and general stupidity running rampant throughout societies. I believe that because I can see it and recognize that it's there, I can transcend it and drag our society kicking and screaming to new heights where at long last a majority of people will be climbing upward productively instead of stagnating and subjugating the less fortunate for their selfish needs. I suppose this is, part of why I find it so distasteful to be told to think without questioning.
I am a philosopher, in the literal sense: a lover of wisdom, for with wisdom comes the desire for knowledge and knowledge is power, which corrupts. Perhaps I will avoid corruption as I gain my knowledge, but certainly I see exactly what it is about knowledge that corrupts. It’s not just any knowledge that does it, it's the knowledge that so many people don't have the same knowledge, even don't want it. It’s the knowledge that ignorance is not bliss. It’s the knowledge that by keeping other people ignorant, I can tell them to think whatever I want them to think and they will think it without question because of my authority and power as a knowledgeable person. This is the corruption of knowledge: for who in their right mind would deny themselves the release from the everyday drudgery of work (oh foul, four letter word) by subjugating others to do one's will? Who would not take advantage of being free to advance one's own interests to the exclusion of all else, having all else taken care of already? Why can't a person focus solely on the upper levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, having virtually automated the ones below? Who cares that the automatons working for you to do this are also human beings that could enjoy such realized potential? What does it matter? I cease to understand, in my understanding, that it matters at all, or that it ever mattered to begin with. My understanding puts me above those that tried so hard to keep me down, keep me in control. Now, I can look down from my understanding and laugh at them, for they did not only miss the potential I had in me, but they missed the potential they had in themselves, believing or at least seeming to believe that their power was enough for them, that their control and influence over others lives was absolute. They delude themselves into thinking that they can know the effect their influence will have on an individual and that when that individual seems to be uninfluenced or influenced otherwise than they intended, that individual is hopelessly doomed to failure.
I am a musician. This may be the one thing that gets me ahead in my material existence. I love composing and performing music and would be happy to pursue it with abandon to the end of time. It seems to have nearly everything I need all rolled into one or easily available from within. I can philosophize, psychoanalyze, imaginize, and mathemetize all in less than three minutes with one idea. I could affect millions, I could make millions, I could retire early and often to take on projects of no relation. I could set my own hours, choose who I associate with, and randomly vanish from the scene with relative impunity. I could satisfy all of my intellectual and emotional desires simultaneously. I can't possibly get started because I am committed to another path and am otherwise expected to disregard all urges to make music a profession. I could not justify to myself even the costs to others if I were to choose this path without first having some other means to support myself. After all, I have a backbone and feel a need to stand up for myself even to my own detriment... and unfortunately my physical needs come before my creative needs.
I am a psychologist. I wish to understand people as fully as possible for without this understanding, how am I to relate to them? By studying people and how they think, I can better prepare myself for manipulating them to suit my needs. Everybody wants to control everybody else, at least in some way. Why not make sure I can do it better by learning how people think? I want to control people in such a way that causes them to show me some respect, at the very least. I want to be able to interact with them adeptly and without making myself seem a fool unless it would improve the situation. Also, by publishing research, I may be able to influence such things as the education system and how educators are taught. It's one of my ultimate goals to reform the entire education system into something that gets this country back on track to reclaim the position of number one in the world technologically.
I am a writer. As if you could not see that already. I have an urge to write that is nearly as bad as that to make music. Sometimes if I do not indulge myself as I am now it causes problems that I can't seem to overcome until I get it out of the way. That’s how this started. I could not sleep. I took a shower to settle my mind. When I came out, my mind was not settled, so I gave in to my urge and began to write. Now I am still not sleeping but somehow I am beginning to feel better and even rested as I dump the contents of my brain into this file. I expect that in due course I shall actually be able to go to bed, but not before I have finished this little project. I often think of things to write about. Lately it happens most often in a philosophy class when I see an order, or sometimes a disorder in the way things are presented by one famous philosopher or another and I feel a need to close a gap, either in their logic, or else wise in their explanation of something. It also happens in psychology where I get an idea about the elephant the blind men are touching. I begin to see pathways opening up before me that have never been traveled before, unifying ideas that could rewrite textbooks and reshape how we think about thinking and the brain. I can't wait to start writing my philosophical book "On the Nature of God". In it I plan to expose God as an idea belonging to many people and taking as many shapes for no particular reason beyond that we have an urge to be controlled. I also plan to write some science fiction. I've always loved sci-fi and most of my ideas for fiction involve technology higher than our own and the implications it will have in society.
I am a person. Perhaps I wrote this whole thing out to try and define myself. I don't know if I have succeeded. In philosophy class I heard that a person is not made up of beliefs. I never did hear what a person IS. To me, a person is as defined by the self. A logical loop by its very inexpressibility in human language. A person is a product of his or her past, the cumulation of his or her potential. A person is a specific thought pattern, subject to change at any given time by any input. A person is a black box, that may have rules, but the rules change with every new piece of data thrown through it. A person is the behaviors exhibited by the person, the output of the black box with unknown and perhaps unknowable rules. A person is the quantum state of an idea at any one time, being constantly influenced so that none can ever know the velocity and position at the same time. A person is a moving, thinking, progressive and transitive being. I am a person. I have unique thought patterns and unique history. In the potentially infinite universe, there may be an infinite number of iterations of me that are STILL not me because only I am at this one particular place at this one particular time. There can be no other that exists exactly as I do because every aspect of my being is an aspect of my identity and any difference makes a person even who thinks exactly the same thoughts as me and engages in exactly the same actions different from me because we are in some way separate. I am Me. I change, I grow, I learn, I think, I breathe, I am. If you understand me, you don't. If you understand that you can't understand me, and that I can never understand you, then maybe we can come to an understanding. Maybe now I can get some sleep.
