The Will to Be Myself

[ericjherboso]

The class was an utter disappointment. I had had such high hopes for that class. Every time a new semester begins, I always find myself optimistic that this time I will find the class that turns everything around for me. Every time, I fool myself into believing that I've finally reached that point in my academic career where I will find a class

Comments

[picarpo]

I had several reactions while reading this. Despite the fiction of parts of your entry I assume that you stand behind the substance. (I get the feeling that you intended to stand behind the substance, but in focusing on making your entry more exciting you sacrificed some accuracy in your statements.)

The Wind and the Sun. As an aside, I have seen the moral translated as either "Kindness effects more than severity" or "Persuasion is better than force", which really are very different. I unfortunately am unable to read the original text

[picarpo]

"I often think that he's the only one of us who's achieved immortality. I don't mean in the sense of fame and I don't mean that he won't die some day. But he's living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they're not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict--and they call it growth. At the end there's nothing left nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him existing forever." (AR, The Fountainhead) Your entry reminded me of this excerpt so I thought I'd post it

[ericjherboso]

Y'know, I was thinking of Roark when I wrote this entry. So either that's a big coincidence, or else you really caught on to what I was trying to say

[ericjherboso]

I agree that the 'mask' terminology was a poor choice. 'Mindset' does indeed work far better

[picarpo]

Like you were, I was trying to justify my intrinsic personal dispositions, and decided not to consider both sides of the argument in order to make the strongest case I could in favour of my situation. In fact I'm not sure exactly where I stand on my ability to change mindsets. I agree that it does in a sense give me a weaker sense of self, since I change more often (than say you). This bothers me especially when I feel I don't have control over my changing mindset. For example, I unconsciously limp when I go to the washroom in the middle of watching an episode of House. (In case you don't know, the protagonist, Dr. House, has a limp.) While this is by itself more amusing than a serious concern, it is concerning how much I may be imitating people with whom I interact without noticing it. At the moment I'm trying to do things moment by moment that I approve of, not necessarily what subconsciously feels natural

[ericjherboso]

In summary (since I know I rambled a bit back there), donning many mindsets is NOT better because it allows you to do the right thing more consistently, since the real right thing must be the same under a single mindset

[picarpo]

I think I agree with this, at least in the mindset I'm in now. ;)

[ericjherboso]

I am just a beginning greek reader, but....

πείθων is definitely best translated as 'persuasion', but in greek, it had the triple meaning of persuasion via kindness, trickery, and force. (Like in english, we say to persuade by kind words, to persuade by trickery, or to persuade by force. Come to think of it, I guess it's exactly like we use it in english.

The way the final sentence is worded feels weird.... I guess it's a form that aesop used in all his morality lines, though.

Regardless, 'persuasion is better than force' is vague in english, because you imeediately think persuasion via trickery. What is meant is kindness, I think, although the text isn't clear on that. Then again, don't listen to me. I've only had one year in greek, and I had to look up three words in that sentence, so I'm not the best person to analyze such things. (c:

[picarpo]

I for one do not think immediately of trickery when I see persuasion, especially after reading the fable. I really like the moral "persuasion is better than force". It represents my philosophy of learning/teaching. In short, I think teachers should teach not facts, but give convincing arguments, and students should learn in this way. In the end if the student accepts the teacher's argument he does so voluntarily and independently. This argument is fully and convincingly given in the Preface to Allan Bloom's translation of Plato's Republic (which, probably not coincidentally, I read on your recommendation). More generally the moral represents one perspective on how I approach my interaction with other people. When I give opinions I try to word them as opinions and not statements, and try not to impose them on others. I detest literal use of the imperative voice.

[ericjherboso]

I definitely agree ion misinterpreting our own actions, which does seem to negate the idea that _all_ we are is what we do. Maybe... _most_ of what we are is what we do?