Becoming “The Student”
My 25-Year Journey Through Ego and Humility
Twenty-five years after being abruptly ejected from the comforts of my in utero beginnings, I sit here reflecting on the core of what I’ve learned this past quarter-century. The pattern of my life thus far, taken together with the direction I am compelled to steer it, seems to form a cohesive battle against one word: Dogma.
dog·ma
1. (noun) a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
Authority is an interesting word, it brings to mind an image of “The Man” or maybe a police officer, but authority can really be any group or individual we grant power over our own opinions: society, religion, social groups, parents, friends, celebrities, or even strangers. The identity of the authority figure is of little importance; the phrase that contains all the evil is: “incontrovertibly true”. Unquestionably true. Indisputably true. Don’t even bring it up.
We live in a world where dogmas fabricated by social perceptions overpower facts, and that’s unfortunately a scientifically based observation on how our brains function. This could be because at some point in our evolution as a species, community became more important than truth. “In exchange for inclusion and thus protection, I’ll believe whatever you want me to believe” sort-of-idea.
It’s been my goal to fight this tempting community-seeking intellectual laziness, and instead, above all, seek truth. For me, a glimpse of hope comes through with a scientific study that suggests, by upping your self-worth you become more willing to accept facts and allow your mind to be changed. This idea is crucial to everything I am putting forth today. It is a very simple observation that says so much about the human condition, and luckily hints at a way to overcome so much pain, both on the individual and global scale. And adhering to this rule, I’d like to tell all of you that you, reader, are awesome and I love you for taking the time to read this.
Both in the creation and blind acceptance of dogma, we cause pain. By creating dogma, yes, we may create community, but we also stifle creativity and undermine truth. And yes, by accepting dogma we may feel like we belong to something but we also perpetuate a system that allows prejudice and ignorance to thrive. Only by building the ego (i.e. our self-worth) are we capable of escaping dogma. However, as the ego continues to develop, we risk transitioning from feeling self-assured to feeling superior. As such, unless we pair the building of the ego with the curtailing of the ego — or rather the development of humility — we may soon become a source of dogma.
I believe the key to personal happiness, as well as the key to a more wide-spread societal peace, is through the dynamic building and restraining of the ego: a balance of self-worth and humility. I like to call this The Humble Ego and it has roots all the way down to the ever-important “Meaning of Life”, which by general consensus, is the pursuit of love, happiness, and fulfillment. Borrowing from philosophy professor, Daniel M. Haybron, “we can think of happiness, loosely, as the opposite of anxiety and depression. Being in good spirits, quick to laugh and slow to anger, at peace and untroubled, confident and comfortable in your own skin, engaged, energetic and full of life.” This is the goal. And what I’ve come to believe is that, as a culture, our contradictory stigmatization yet simultaneous promotion of the ego confuses our pursuit and understanding of happiness as it pertains to how we overcome dogma.
I.
As children, we are insatiably curious. We have neither egos nor dogmas, and our time consists of fascination, play, exploration, and of course a seemingly endless string of “Whys?”. Unfortunately, most of our eager “Whys?” end in thought-stopping dogma.
Some of these dogmas serve very practical purposes: “Look both ways before you cross the street”, “don’t touch the stove” etc.: things we don’t necessarily want to try for ourselves. But let’s be honest, how many of us touched the stove anyway? A simple example of how questioning dogma (although sometimes “unwise”) can be immensely more memorable and powerful than trusting dogma blindly.
“We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.” ―Blaise Pascal, Pensées
On the other hand, dogmas can be shortcuts, ways to explain the seemingly inexplicable, or less virtuously, ways to preserve the status quo or to further entrench authority figures’ power. In short, to control you.
When we reach the teenage years, we begin to question dogmas as we begin to question the godlike nature of our parents as the unquestionable generators of dogma (a status parental imprinting basically gives them by default). Once we begin to understand our parents aren’t perfect we enter the identity crisis of adolescence that suddenly asks us to define ourselves, which can be a thoroughly messy endeavor.
“When a child first catches adults out — when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just — his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone.” ―John Steinbeck, East of Eden
I’ve only cried (outside of romcoms) a couple of times in my life. One such occasion was in my early teens; I was inexplicably moody and my parents, having noticed, forced me to address that something wasn’t right. What was wrong hadn’t even surfaced in my consciousness when I just began to feel hot all over, boiling with anger, until I exploded: “I JUST HATE CHANGE!” The dam had burst, and I cried and cried as my parents consoled my daunted spirit facing the insurmountable task of growing up and taking on the responsibility of simply being an individual. For in our young years, we are protected by dogmas. They are our guide, our safety net. But they are also a Purgatory we must outgrow.
II.
Transitioning from middle to high school, I went through some significant behavioral transformations as I tried to gain the attention of the childhood love of my life. First I emulated her boyfriends — changing my musical tastes and attire to match theirs — and when that didn’t work, I went the completely opposite direction and rejected association with the defining aspects of her significant others. After several soul-exhausting attempts to be something I wasn’t, I realized there are two ways of not being yourself. One way, is mirroring your actions, beliefs, or opinions after others. This is called mimetic theory and is popular with mainstream culture. The other way is to define yourself in spite of people, which is unsurprisingly very popular within counterculture.
What’s ironic, is that both are essentially the same. Both are tactics to identify with a community, but both are shortcuts and cop-outs, because each can prevent development of self-worth by robbing you of your individuality. It’s rare an individual is going to like or dislike everything another person or community does. So no matter which community you choose, your true self is going to disagree with some of its tenants, which means to agree with some of the tenants of an opposing culture. When push comes to shove, especially during our teenage years, most people choose a community over individualism at the expense of a few personal proclivities. I can’t really say I was any different. Yes, I believe coming to the above realization at a young age led me down the long road of creating my own values, but I know there were times when I sacrificed my self for inclusion. I’m not too worried about that; it’s impossible to define yourself in a vacuum. You need things to push against and pull yourself toward. I used the differences and similarities in others to start defining myself and my ego through identification, contrast, and discomfort.
In essence, dogma is really just a placeholder for personality. Dogma and the soul inhabit the same space. Societal norms give you a default that has been tried and tested as “safe”. Yet someone who accepts and obeys all dogmas is essentially a non-entity. It therefore stands to reason that the act of defining yourself is essentially the systematic challenging and rejection of dogma. To develop your ego, you need to create your own values or at least spend the time validating certain ones already given to you.
*touches stove* “oh, yeah, yup! That’s a good rule.”
*watches Sailor Moon* “Fag!” “Whatever, I’m still going to watch that shit.”
Some of my absolute closest friends all have something in common: they were all forced to challenge deep-set dogmas because they were born with liberal souls to a family who’s dogma, often of a religious nature, didn’t align with their personal truth. It’s often easy to challenge dogmas once a little momentum has been established. Challenging the sanctity of the God that was given to them granted them a lot of momentum to question the relatively mundane dogmas beyond that. Once that very large barrier was breached, a flood of themselves rushed forward, with the strength to challenge any dogma which helped make them into the beautiful individuals they are today.
Since I wasn’t really raised religious, I personally believe the dogma I was fortunate enough to wrestle with was the idea of binary sexualities. I now believe struggling with dogma is one of the most important conduits for self-discovery — I understand what people mean when they say “I’m thankful for my struggle.” I don’t know if I would have had the strength to be an individual if I hadn’t been forced to practice on something so consuming as sexuality. A relatively large part of my identity required I define myself in contrast to society, and that irreverence to dogma carried over into all parts of my life.
By now it’s pretty clear I don’t see dogma as generally healthy. Dogma says: “What is, is, and will always be.” It undermines our ability to question, learn, and express ourselves. It shakes our faith in our individuality; the importance of our own well-being. It diminishes us before we have a chance to be rooted. Nips us at the bud. Humans need to be given a chance to grow, to assert our importance, even if it’s an unfounded, immature sense of entitlement. Growth can be guided, but the absence of growth can accomplish nothing. Such growth characterized my college years, and my ego may have overextended itself for a time, but I now see that as an integral step in my development toward something more agreeable. Such an observation brings about the idea that value systems aren’t static but dynamic — what was necessary then might not be harmonious now, and what is morally pertinent now might not be later. Individualism may precede ego-transcendence, and there may be no quicker path to benevolence than through self-centeredness.
To quote Carl Sagan: “But, I could be wrong.”
III.
In college, as I read more, communicated more, and debated with my friends more, my ego began to solidify. I started to realize who I was and what I believed in, but unfortunately also started to overextend my ego. Maybe I read a bit too much Ayn Rand, or maybe it was necessary, but I fell in to the ego trap I like to call The Presumption of Sameness. Have you ever felt so passionately about something that you just knew, KNEW, you were capital-r Right? You wondered, exasperated, why everyone else was so stupid that they didn’t share your conviction? You’ve fallen into the trap. In your excitement of finding your own truth, you have overstepped into believing it to be a universal truth.
“If only everyone would read this book!”
“If only everyone would listen to this song!”
“Everyone should give money to this cause I find most important! Don’t you see how important it is [to me]!!”
And yet when others are not moved in the same way, they become the enemy, the imbecile. We forget that the context of our lives shapes our every experience. That which moves you, will not affect others in the same way, or it just might not be in their aesthetic. A negative reaction to this idea means you are not secure in your conviction and are succumbing to the need for external validation.
The most simple example of this that brought that type of egocentric viewpoint crashing down was just a seemingly ordinary encounter:
I walked into my fraternity bathroom and saw my best friend shaving his neck, moving the razor upward.
“You know you’re supposed to shave against the grain, right?” I informed him semi-haughtily.
“I am…” he said, annoyed.
“No you’re not-” I ate my words. As I leaned closer I saw that he was indeed shaving against the grain.
My neck hair grows upward. So to shave against the grain, I shave down. The opposite of my friend. That is probably the most trite and superficial example of how differences and individualities shape our existence and behavior even if we’re all driving at the same thing in the end. We were both shaving against the grain, by moving the razor in completely different directions. What hit me so strongly must have been that if I could be so haughty about something so minor, what hope did I have for issues that actually mattered?
If you’ve ever visited an internet comment section you are likely to understand the Presumption of Sameness. People argue over which new gadget is better. They result to calling each other idiots because obviously “this spec is objectively better than that one” and so on, ad nauseum. What all of them fail to realize is that people have different tastes. I know, isn’t it absurd to think that what is best for you might not be best for other people and vice versa!? Ridiculous, I know. This is because underdeveloped egos require external validation; people who are uncomfortable with themselves or their proclaimed values/interests try to solidify their opinions by convincing other people to share their view. Often this results in simply attempting to prove other people wrong. And when that doesn’t work, the insults start flying.
What is confusing about this behavior is it indicates both an ego large enough to assert its opinion yet not developed enough to be happy without strength in numbers.
I feel like this stage is a rather common stagnation point in the development of humans. It exhibits a bit of ego, a bit of humility, and the ability to create community over shared interests, which are often superficial or arbitrary. At this point you can make friends, and you can also feel superior to others.
Beyond this ego dynamic I can see only two very distinct and somewhat opposite outcomes as the ego continues to develop. Either the ego gets to a point where it becomes so self-involved the individual develops into a messiah-complexed, megalomaniac, dogma-creating Dictator or the individual transcends his ego and develops into something of a Student. I mean “Student” in the highest most reverent sense of the term and in the most complimentary of ways.
The Dictator is interested in being Right while the Student is interested in Truth. The difference being, the Dictator would rather be right than truthful, and the Student would rather be wrong than ignorant.
When I was in college, a stranger changed my life. We’ve never met but his name is Josh Biddle, and in 2010 he became the first community college transfer student to win Berkeley’s most prestigious undergraduate award, the University Medal. His secret to success?
He wants his peers to know that, despite his 4.0 GPA, he’s hardly a whiz kid. “In class, I ask more questions than most folks because I’m comfortable with my ignorance,” he said. “I’m willing to put myself out there and learn.”
Discussion sections at Berkeley were uniquely painful. The TA (or Graduate Student Instructor as we called them) would throw out these softball questions, and the class would be absolute crickets. I’d go to class the first week, always optimistic that this year would be different, but it never was. Everyone was terrified of looking stupid. So no one ever said a word.
I think everyone took this quote a little too dogmatically: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
When I could, after a sufficiently awkward pause, I felt obligated to come to the exasperated TA’s rescue. But I wasn’t infinitely secure myself so I’d eventually get shy and stop showing up to the class altogether. The problem was surely that these Berkeley kids knew they were smart. Or at least that’s what the world kept telling them. And so, their egos prevented them from asking questions, because they thought they were already supposed to know. They didn’t want anyone to catch on to the truth that they were scared, ignorant students. How I wish I could go back in time and tell them (and myself!) how okay that is. Embrace The Student! Acknowledge your ignorance!
“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.” ―Isaac Newton
And so, I was deeply affected when I heard about this community college kid walking into Berkeley thinking to himself, “Well shit, I made it. I bet everyone here is smarter than me. But that’s okay, I’ll just ask a bunch of questions to make up for it.” To me this signified such a sincere confidence yet also an unflustered humility that allowed him so gracefully the acceptance of his own ignorance. He understood that, as a student, practically by definition, there shouldn’t be any fear in learning. He wasn’t afraid of the vulnerability that comes with potentially being wrong. After all, we don’t go to school to be right. It made me wonder if it’s confidence or humility that allows a person to stand up and say, “I am ignorant, I am a Student, I am here to learn.” I think it must be both.
To me this demonstrated that in order to be completely confident and comfortable in who you are — to become The Student, the Truth-Seeker — you must also be remarkably humble.
Even more, it seems our language is lacking, or maybe we just haven’t defined our words strictly enough. It’s almost like the type of humility I’m talking about is this second layer of confidence. It isn’t the opposite. It is confidence deepened. Egotistical people are scared. Scared that someone will find them out, that they have been imposters all along. Humble people couldn’t give a rats ass how they are perceived, and not because they think they’re always right such that the perceptions of others are irrelevant (That’s the Dictator) but because they have an ego that is accepting and unperturbed by its own weaknesses.
“We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” ―Richard P. Feynman
The Student has transcended the fear of being wrong through the acquisition of humility and perspective, whereas the Dictator attempts to lose the fear of being wrong through the suppression or contrived negation of opposition.
To recap, I believe developing an ego is the only way to escape dogma that is both given to us by others and created by our younger selves. However, there is definitely a fine line between having self-worth (being secure and comfortable in your own skin) vs. being arrogant and self-absorbed. The virtue of developing an ego to escape dogma is rarely explored due to the ego’s primary association with the Dictators. However, there exists a healthy ego, the Student-ego that has been softened by humility.
And you don’t need to self-abase yourself to be humble. In fact I see true humility as a simple combination of two things.
1) Being self-content — a certain disinterest in perfection. This frees the Student from seeing praise or attention as some sort of limited social currency. The Student is thus generous in his praise of others, because he doesn’t base his ego off an externally validated social ranking. Therefore, he is comfortable spreading validation around, because it flows through him like water.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” ―John Steinbeck, East of Eden
2) Willing to listen to others. Willing might be too passive of an adjective, perhaps I mean desirous of alternative perspectives. Genuinely interested in others. That is humility. Not the faux-humility of self-abasement for the secret desire of being perceived as humble — an inherently “egotistical” flaw.
“True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” ―C.S. Lewis
IV.
At this point you’ve probably forgotten why the hell I’m even talking about all this ego and humility nonsense. It all comes down to my belief that adopting the mindset of The Student can improve how we treat others as well as how we treat ourselves. Which, in all my adorable naiveté, I truly believe can lead to increased personal happiness as well as broader societal peace.
How We Treat Others:
The Humble Ego frees the Student from fretting over differences in others. Imagine being completely confident and comfortable in who you are. People of different walks of life are no longer threatening. A difference in person doesn’t present or threaten an insecurity in your own being. If anything, a difference in a person presents an opportunity to grow. If they do something differently, it is no longer automatically stupid. It is either something that applies better to them than it does to you, or it presents a new, useful way of doing something. Automatically assuming something is inferior because it wouldn’t improve the quality of your own life is falling into The Presumption of Sameness trap.
“People are not stupid. They believe things for reasons. The last way for skeptics to get the attention of bright, curious, intelligent people is to belittle or condescend or to show arrogance toward their beliefs.” ―Carl Sagan
I think it’s pretty clear that most conflicts arise when two parties disagree. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with disagreement, it accomplishes nothing if neither party learns anything. On the surface level, it seems that in most arguments each party is trying to convince the other to change their opinion, however, seeing as this almost never happens in the real world — it brings these virtuous motives into question. I believe that few people argue because they actually want to change someone’s opinion, and even fewer argue because they want to change their own opinion by learning something new. So why do people argue? Probably to reaffirm their egos.
It goes something like this: We wrap our ego around things we believe to the point where our beliefs and our egos become intertwined. Those beliefs harden and stagnate until they become things we “know”, such that when someone attempts to change what you “know” you become defensive or angry because they are now essentially attacking your ego and the reality you’ve built around it.
Conversely, when dealing with people who have obdurate beliefs, we fail to change their mind because we let our own egos become more important than the goal of truth. The majority of arguments are phrased from a place of superiority, which turns out to be a very counterproductive tactic to change an opponent’s mind. Going back to what I said in the very beginning, if you lower someone’s self-worth by insulting them, they will turn on defense mechanisms that will make them irrational and incapable of accepting change. Attacking a person’s ego-entwined belief will make them angry. And when people get upset, the amygdala (an almond sized part of your brain) quite literally takes over the rational part of the brain, shutting it down for 30–90 minutes and making it impossible for them to learn anything new.
I think this may be the most important thing I’ve learned in my first 25 years: that asserting your opinion over someone else’s is the most counterproductive way to achieve change.
“Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.” ―Nietzsche
If you’re involved in an argument and you resort to insulting your opponent or assuming your superiority, you’ve already lost. The only reason we would feel the need to phrase things in a condemnatory or incredulous way is if we are not secure in our own beliefs, and we are arguing less to change their opinion, and more to reaffirm our ego. Argument between rational beings isn’t about being right or wrong, it’s about learning. So try to be open, like The Student, you can’t learn less.
What I’ve figured out through experience is that the only way to get someone to change their mind, rational or otherwise, is to get them to organically question their beliefs on their own terms. Coexist with them in such a way that you can speak about your beliefs frankly, but without preaching it as dogma.
To a person who may not agree with your opinion (no matter how factual) this expresses that you are so secure in your opinion that you don’t need to gain followers to compound your beliefs. If they are not so secure in their contrasting opinion, they will tentatively explore yours because you’ve left the door open. Attack them, and they will run in the opposite direction, or harden against your opinions regardless of their validity. It (clearly) doesn’t matter if you have 98% of the scientific community on your side. Yelling at someone for being stupid isn’t going to change their mind. I like to think it might help to gauge a person’s rationality by asking:
“Hypothetically, what would have to be true for you to change your mind?”
Just by asking this question, you’ve opened up the possibility, in the most subtle of ways, that they could be wrong. That truths could exist that would nullify their position — and if they say nothing could change their mind — no amount of truth — then you know the argument isn’t worth your time.
Unfortunately, people who are misinformed will often, when presented with facts counter to their beliefs, hold onto their beliefs even stronger. So don’t push it. Love, and I mean this biochemically, is probably the only emotion stronger than a firmly held belief. So, choose your battles accordingly.
I’m not saying we can’t criticize one another or that we should all join a hippie commune and prance around chanting “Love”. I do understand the importance of criticism. Our unique perspectives allow us to raise faults in other peoples’ actions or ideas they might be blind to. However, to criticize effectively, the criticizer should be sure their criticisms aren’t coming from an under or overdeveloped ego. And the criticized must be able to take in the criticism and weigh it objectively. They must not be afraid of being wrong — not because they won’t sometimes be wrong, but because the perception of being wrong isn’t a negative one. The acknowledgement of being wrong is a chance to be right.
“Any jackass can tell me I’m wrong; I respect the ones who can tell me why.” ―Bill Maher
It’s all woven together. If you don’t fully form your ego, that space gets inhabited by dogmas. Never having fully formed your ego, you would harbor low self-worth but hold great value in the dogmatic beliefs you have come to “know”. So, when people challenge your beliefs, your low self-worth and your ego-entwined beliefs make it impossibly difficult to change your mind even in the face of cold, hard facts.
To me this signals such an important reason to both treat yourself better, as well as help others find their self-worth.
How We Treat Ourselves:
It’s a very difficult process to practice what you preach. I often fail to follow what I’ve put forth in this article, but, conveniently for me, part of my philosophy is accepting these failures. I’m a learning human that is trying his best. Sometimes I’m petty and defensive, other times accidentally insensitive or egotistical. Somewhere along the way, maybe after I read East of Eden, I realized all of that is okay. I don’t have to be perfect. The key is to observe these moments. Not feel anxiety over them. Because reprimanding myself for these slip-ups doesn’t add to my progress, it subtracts.
Seriously — take it easy on yourself. The whole of my philosophy is contained in the idea that being the first to criticize yourself goes a long way, but you must also be the first to forgive yourself. This is because it takes a certain mixture of self-assurance and humility to recognize your faults without it destroying you and to forgive yourself because you’ve come to understand you’re not perfect and that’s just dandy.
As a bonus, this process releases you from the anxiety and harm of external judgment. If you can recognize what is and what is not wrong with yourself before anyone else — there is no hurt in having others criticize you because it is either (1) something you have already recognized and are working on, or (2) something that is baseless and therefore irrelevant. However, that final step. The step of self-forgiveness comes from understanding imperfection as an opportunity to grow. And it releases you from the angst, self-harm, and often harm of others that spawns from lashing out in the improper direction; “displaced aggression” as it’s called. This letting go of the fear of being wrong. This letting go of the idea that values are static and therefore you are almost always failing to live up to them on your journey to them. This letting go will help you treat yourself more kindly. Know that today your value might be to be selfish and tomorrow it might be to be altruistic. Know that these are not conflicting.
“One has to believe wholehartedly in what one is doing, realize that it is the best one can do at the moment — forego perfection now and always! — and accept the consequences which giving birth entails. One’s best critic is oneself. Progress, realization, mastery, these are achieved, as every one knows, through continuous application, through toil and struggle, through reflection, meditation, self-analysis, above all through being scrupulously and relentlessly honest with oneself.” ―Henry Miller
And this is very difficult for most people. So it doesn’t hurt to help each other along the way. To compliment one another. To help affirm our friends’ self worth. To simply give thanks. That is true friendship, and it is sadly very rare amongst friend groups to actively and genuinely encourage each other.
—
Alas, this is my working theory, my 25th Manifesto, if you will, and please, validate it; criticize it, as you will, because I’m interested in growing.
A huge thank you to the talented Michaela & Milana Vachuska for their artwork.
