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Monthly Archives: January 2009
Boarding the Train of Self Discovery – Inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Full Nietzche Quote I used as inspiration for this post is attached at the bottom.
I find many of Nietzche’s thoughts hard to relate to due my unfamiliarity with the time period he is writing in, but I found this paragraph rich with enduring ideas.
Nietzsche’s basic argument here is that men are fearful and lazy. They hide behind tradition to disguise their lack of individuality. They look to blend in it to hide their laziness for in a sea of laziness they can’t be picked out. Men know they only have this one life to live, yet they are scared to make the most of it. They are afraid of taking an honest look at themselves for fear of what they might discover. The philosopher despises man for opting for this life of convention rather than a life of individuality. Only the artist seeks to reveal man as he truly is. It is not hard for man to break this cycle. All he must do is find dissatisfaction in conformity and dare to be different, dare to be himself.
The scary thing is that this rings almost as true as when Nietzsche wrote these words over a century ago. There are signs we may be on the verge of a creative awakening. But currently a very small population attacks life with a fervent passion, seeking self-discovery, self-improvement and a life of creative contribution.
What fear could be so strong that it represses our individuality?
This fear must cut deep to deprive us of the only thing we’ll ever have. Everyone knows we have only this one life, yet most choose to live as if this wasn’t the case Nietzsche is confounded that so many are persuaded by a little discomfort to abandon the pursuit of individuality. Failing to individuate is failing to live. You’d be living a life that has already been lived. We are all given our own unique genetics and our own experiences. We all have the capability to dare to be different and carve out our own unique identity in the world. Why do so few make the most of this truly once in a lifetime opportunity?
Our paralysis comes from our fear of rejection. Many of our biological instincts evolved when the sole goal of life was to survive. In tribal culture, where humanity existed for so long, the best way to ensure survival was to stick with the tribe. If you were ostracized your chance of surviving went down drastically. Naturally, we evolved an aversion to putting ourselves in situations where others might reject us and kick us out of the tribe. But times have changed. Few would argue today the sole purpose of life is reproduction. Organized human society affords us something new. A life that transcends basic survival. A life where meaning is created by what we do with our minds. A mind with boundless potential if only given the chance to explore. And this what causes Nietzsche to have so much disdain for man. Everyone is given this gift, redeemable only once, yet so few embark on this journey.
Short Term Pain For Long Term Gain
It is a journey not without hardship and not without sacrifice. Nobody is claiming finding the resolve to grow is easy, but it is the only choice we have. Almost anything worthwhile is worth fighting for. The alternative is a life of boredom and regret. When you look at life as a journey of improvement and exploration, struggle isn’t something to fear it is something to embrace. Failing after we’ve given our all is when we learn the most because we are given timely feedback about what we did wrong. If you learn from failure it really isn’t failure at all. What is perceived as risky really isn’t that risky. If this journey is accepted and risks are taken, success and failure are both wins. It is with this knowledge that you realize the ultimate risk is to do nothing at all.
It is not just fear that arrests our individuality but universal forces that resist halfhearted momentary courage. The good news is that if you break the inertial forces that compel stillness, it becomes easier and easier to keep going. Nature is full of examples that support this. The energy required to lift a spaceship out of the atmosphere is greater than in the thousands of miles it travels to the moon their after. Static friction is greater than kinetic friction. Newton’s first law of motion says an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion. These forces form the protective shield that keeps the sphere of the extraordinary smaller than the ordinary. But these forces are far from insurmountable and all Nietzsche is asking for is a little determination and little perseverance to pursue a life of uniqueness.
Perhaps this is a good thing that nature restricts the extraordinary. A meritocracy is built right in. But my frustration with humanity is that the circle of the extraordinary doesn’t need to be so small. The barrier to entry is far from insurmountable and the reward is more than worth the pain of admission. The first step is recognition that the only way to truly live is to board the train of self-discovery. The only way to fail is to do nothing. If you accept this, the willpower to take the first step is just around the bend.
Out With The Old In With The New
The resolve to be different does not get us out of the woods yet. There is one other very important condition for sustainable growth. Painting your unique picture requires more than blithe commitment. Self-discovery entails the bravery to take an honest look at ourselves; and this usually not without considerable pain. Men are afraid of becoming completely honest with themselves because a look in the mirror might reveal a ghastly sight. This will be true for everybody. Self-improvement never ends but if you’ve never started then invariably there will be resistance to admitting change is necessary. But getting stronger almost always involves some short-term pain. The athlete slightly tears his muscles everyday and comes back stronger the next. But why are there so many more athletes than self-discoverers? Both involve in short term pain for long term gain. Perhaps it is because there is a greater risk in engaging in battle with your core identity than with your body, but there is also greater reward.
In order to grow, we must uncover the things we buried long ago in order to avoid dealing with them. Admitting our flaws is unquestionably uncomfortable. And will undoubtedly be avoided unless it is recognized that our only option is to board the train of self-discovery. If there is not this burning desire to change and a palpable sense that improvement is possible then our recognition of our flaws would merely cause us to wallow in self-pity. Absent of this desire to change we cover up and rationalize our troubles, letting them fester, eroding our effectiveness and happiness.
The Journey Forward
Resolving to change is unbelievably gratifying and opens up new dimensions of life over the long term. Nietzsche finds contemptible the man who prefers comfort in rationalizations to the man who finds the resolve to endure short-term pain for a chance at creative contribution and perhaps enlightenment.
Nietzsche says only the artist seeks to expose man as he really is. Artists have a penchant for creations that are able to identify our pain, inadequacies, and frustrations in concise visceral way that reeks of truth. But I find contemptible the artist who illuminates flaws with no move towards resolution. What Nietzsche does not say is that true artist is the man who accepts this pain and takes action to change. For these actions are the brushstrokes of a life that is a true work of art.
In conclusion, personal growth invariably involves a temporary but necessary pain. This should not cripple but inspire change. What irks Nietzsche and so many other philosophers is that so many are deterred by a small dose of pain from pursuing a lifelong journey of understanding of self, of pursuit of knowledge, of self improvement, and maybe some day enlightenment.
The most sustainable way to grow seems to be first have a solid grasp of ideas intellectually. Ideas are cheap. And then focus a majority of your efforts on making these ideas a reality. This is blog is my quest to understand ideas intellectually. But the implementation is a much more turbulent journey.
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A traveller who had seen many countries and peoples and several continents was asked what human traits he had found everywhere; and he answered: men are inclined to laziness. Some will feel that he might have said with greater justice: they are all timorous. They hide behind customs and opinions. At bottom, every human being knows very well that he is in this world just once, as something unique, and that no accident, however strange, will throw together a second time into a unity such a curious and diffuse plurality: he knows it, but hides it like a bad conscience why? From fear of his neighbour who insists on convention and veils himself with it. But what is it that compels the individual human being to fear his neighbour, to think and act herd-fashion, and not to be glad of himself? A sense of shame, perhaps, in a few rare cases. In the vast majority it is the desire for comfort, inertia – in short, that inclination to laziness of which the traveller spoke. He is right: men are even lazier than they are timorous, and what they fear most is the troubles with which any unconditional honesty and nudity would burden them. Only artists hate this slovenly life in borrowed manners and loosely fitting opinions and unveil the secret, everybody’s bad conscience, the principle that every human being is a unique wonder; they dare to show us the human being as he is, down to the last muscle, himself and himself alone even more, that in this rigorous consistency of his uniqueness he is beautiful and worth contemplating, as novel and incredible as every work of nature, and by no means dull. When a great thinker despises men, it is their laziness that he despises: for it is un account of this that they have the appearance of factory products and seem indifferent and unworthy of companionship or instruction. The human being who does not wish to belong to the mass must merely cease being comfortable with himself; let him follow his conscience which shouts at him: “Be yourself! What you are at present doing, opining, and desiring, that is not really you.”…
Changing Education: M.I.T. Takes Big Step in Right Direction
Find the original article here.
M.I.T. has just undergone a large change in the way it teaches many of it’s technical classes. The lecture format has been dropped in favor of more active approaches to learning. I believe this is undeniably a good thing.
I think there are two key changes here that this shift addresses, and one more change they would do well to incorporate. The important shifts are narrowing the breadth of the information in order to increase focus on the essential, and increasing engagement by filtering knowledge through an action oriented lens. But this approach still lacks the clear communication of why this knowledge is important in the first place. I’m not arguing that it isn’t important but communicating why it is important is an essential part in giving students the motivation to learn the material.
Narrowing Breadth
Teachers have a tendency to cram as much information as possible in the time they have rather than focusing deeply on communicating the key insights. All that information may be important but the dilution of the key principles makes the lesson overwhelming and decreases engagement and motivation.
In an article in the education journal Change last year, Dr. Wieman noted that the human brain “can hold a maximum of about seven different items in its short-term working memory and can process no more than about four ideas at once.”
“But the number of new items that students are expected to remember and process in the typical hourlong science lecture is vastly greater,” he continued. “So we should not be surprised to find that students are able to take away only a small fraction of what is presented to them in that format.”
Effective teaching needs to be consistent with how the brain actually learns. Absorbing the breadth of information that needs to be covered actually would be quite easy if the key concepts were communicated effectively first. Don’t try to understand a vast set of information by going through it in entirety once hoping the unconscious will miraculously synthesize a pattern. A much better method would involve learning the underlying pattern first. A lot of the information should now snap into place as most ideas in a class are just variations of the underlying pattern, and only require one additional step to achieve a deep understanding. But from my experience this is a major departure from how most teachers teach. There’s almost no flexibility in class because teachers have a fixed amount of curriculum they have to cover.
This has many parallels to current scientific understanding of the creative process. When the mind just tries to absorb everything and doesn’t know what it’s looking for it’s overwhelming and very little ends up being well understood. It’s like trying to write when you’re asked to write about anything. There’s simply too many things that nothing comes to mind. It’s much easier to be creative when you guidelines are defined. Creativity is working within restrictions. You need to know what to focus on. Asking clear, concise questions helps a lot. If you don’t know what you don’t understand first formulate a clear question. That narrows the confusion from a diffused feeling of understanding nothing to a specific topic that needs a little more attention.
Increasing Engagement
“There was a long tradition that what it meant to teach was to give a really well-prepared lecture,” said Peter Dourmashkin, a senior lecturer in physics at M.I.T. and a strong proponent of the new method. “It was the students’ job to figure it out… The people who wanted to understand,” Professor Mazur said, “had the discipline, the urge, to sit down afterwards and say, ‘Let me figure this out.’ ” But for the majority, he said, a different approach is needed.
When you do that you are only going to engage the very top of the class for who the material comes completely naturally. But that cuts out a huge percentage of people who are very close to developing a deep understanding but just need a little help. The school system only works for two types of people. The student who is conditioned to accept whatever they are told and will do whatever is necessary to get the good grade and get into an Ivy league school. And the student who is so passionate about a subject that they are completely driven to develop a deep understanding of the subject. But often this type of student does well in only a few subjects and becomes a very narrow minded person early on.
M.I.T is taking real steps towards make learning a more active process.
“Just as you can’t become a marathon runner by watching marathons on TV,” Professor Mazur said, “likewise for science, you have to go through the thought processes of doing science and not just watch your instructor do it.” The new approach at M.I.T. is known by its acronym, TEAL, for Technology Enhanced Active Learning.
Not surprisingly, “younger professors tend to be more enthusiastic about TEAL than veterans who have been perfecting their lectures for decades.”
Wider Applicability of Purpose
Life is long. The most important thing schools need to instill is a lifelong love of learning. If your goal is ‘success’, and you measure it over the long haul then everything else should be secondary to instilling that motivation. We rush people through piles upon piles of information and almost never stop to tell them why they are learning all this information. We never give the breathing room for them to explore the knowledge. See what it’s useful for out in the real world. We rarely ever let them exercise creativity. School is about doing what your told and not questioning authority.
In talking with many teachers the thing that seems to be holding them back the most from becoming more creative and innovative is fear. They are afraid to give up control to the students. Not being able to predict what students will do with their time and whether they will use it wisely or laugh it off causes teachers to shake in their boots. There a few teachers who I’ve had who do have the courage to be different, and most of the time they’ve been more than rewarded with an incredibly engaged and enthusiastic class of students who look forward to coming to class and enjoy learning. How about that for a concept: Learning is fun.
The best way I know of to increase engagement and purpose is project based learning that interacts directly with the real world. This can stimulate desire, creativity, purpose and in the process create a better world. But I’ll save that for another post.
What The World Needs Now…
I believe what the world needs most is a large crop of motivated lifelong learners who are capable of seeing big problems in the world and solving them. I would like to see in the next year, these people go out and make their transformative ideas a reality. I would like to see these people fully supported with all the tools they need to be successful. America needs to rediscover its innovative roots. If you don’t feel like you can change the world yourself then find the people who you think can. Devote your energy to accelerating their ability to make an impact. Offer the skills you have to remove their roadblocks and reveal their blind spots to them. Everybody must find some way to be a part of the innovation cycle. I would like to see everybody committed to creating something the world needs!
Solar Lanterns
These pictures are from a school project that I was involved with last year. We made solar lanterns and gave them to villagers in Senegal and Ethiopia who didn’t have electricity.
