Before, your motivation to do well in school was to Be a Smart Person. Smart possibly replaced by competent, studious, curious, etc. Since socialization had taught you that those who do well in and go far in academics are Smart People, your motivation was fine. You had trouble in high school in part because you didn’t think they were helping you Be a Smart Person, but you didn’t come to see the goals of the educational system as opposite your own.
But then you did. You thought, “The stated role of graduate school is to make Smart People, I know that’s not what they’re doing, now I have no assurance that merely by being a student I am Being a Smart Person—and I’m afraid that merely by being a student I am making myself WORSE at Being a Smart Person,” so you were extremely uncomfortable.
I don’t know, I think there’s a fairly common tendency to see what one is asked of by society as being in harmony with one’s own goals and well-being. I would assume that’s a big part of how people maintain their social lives—going to church because it’s what their community does and they’ve never questioned it, shaving their body hair and wearing make-up and torturous clothes if they’re women, trying to Be the way they’re supposed to be. But then you realized that a major part of the socially-required aspect of your life conflicted with your deeper values of learning and truth and competence, and you had to restructure your life to stop merely Being and instead see yourself as someone who is DOING something for a particular reason that can’t just be taken whole from society but actually has to be figured out.
This is very likely the sort of thing that was actually going on in my brain, although it’s not what it felt like from the inside. Thanks for pointing this out.
Of course, a variety of alternative scenarios would also seem plausible as insights, but it did seem very much like you were refocusing from a “I do this because this is who I am and this is what I do” position to one of “I do this because this will help me achieve a goal”—and with that rationality becomes more important. I was trying to understand your perspective that this was the result of acquiring thinking skills: you first acquired the ability and habit of questioning the motivations of the authorities who promoted schooling and certain tasks in school, and then you acquired the ability and habit of asking what you really wanted to do regardless of the way things are supposed to work.
Wouldn’t this be more of an identity thing?
Before, your motivation to do well in school was to Be a Smart Person. Smart possibly replaced by competent, studious, curious, etc. Since socialization had taught you that those who do well in and go far in academics are Smart People, your motivation was fine. You had trouble in high school in part because you didn’t think they were helping you Be a Smart Person, but you didn’t come to see the goals of the educational system as opposite your own.
But then you did. You thought, “The stated role of graduate school is to make Smart People, I know that’s not what they’re doing, now I have no assurance that merely by being a student I am Being a Smart Person—and I’m afraid that merely by being a student I am making myself WORSE at Being a Smart Person,” so you were extremely uncomfortable.
I don’t know, I think there’s a fairly common tendency to see what one is asked of by society as being in harmony with one’s own goals and well-being. I would assume that’s a big part of how people maintain their social lives—going to church because it’s what their community does and they’ve never questioned it, shaving their body hair and wearing make-up and torturous clothes if they’re women, trying to Be the way they’re supposed to be. But then you realized that a major part of the socially-required aspect of your life conflicted with your deeper values of learning and truth and competence, and you had to restructure your life to stop merely Being and instead see yourself as someone who is DOING something for a particular reason that can’t just be taken whole from society but actually has to be figured out.
This is very likely the sort of thing that was actually going on in my brain, although it’s not what it felt like from the inside. Thanks for pointing this out.
You’re welcome. ^_^
Of course, a variety of alternative scenarios would also seem plausible as insights, but it did seem very much like you were refocusing from a “I do this because this is who I am and this is what I do” position to one of “I do this because this will help me achieve a goal”—and with that rationality becomes more important. I was trying to understand your perspective that this was the result of acquiring thinking skills: you first acquired the ability and habit of questioning the motivations of the authorities who promoted schooling and certain tasks in school, and then you acquired the ability and habit of asking what you really wanted to do regardless of the way things are supposed to work.