Continuation of “A Conversation Continued: Remorse And Empathy”
https://madmanphilosophy.home.blog/2020/05/21/a-conversation-continued-remorse-and-empathy/
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I like the seed analogy. That makes the most sense in my head.
Same actually.
I’m glad you’re asking these questions, because this is something I’ve been struggling with, and I’m explaining it to myself as much as I am to you.
They do say the best way to learn something is to teach it!
If there’s anything I’m good at it’s asking questions.
That’s a really good trait to have. Too many people just accept what they’re told, or pretend to know more than they do.
What’s sad is that every child is great at asking questions, so something happens in life that beats that curiosity out of them. I think schooling is one of the most important things to a child, but our outdated teaching methods are doing more harm than good.
Result-focused schooling is efficient, but suffocating.
I used to be scared to ask anything for fear of being viewed as dumb, but ever since starting grad studies I’ve realized how little I know and now all I want to do is ask questions.
I love hearing other people’s perspectives on things. Not only does it help me make better sense of the person, but it helps me formulate my own thoughts.
I used to be okay with not knowing how I felt about a lot of things, but I’m tired of that.
I feel the same way about results focused therapy. Would you say that your experience in school was results focused?
I would say so. I was praised for good grades, so that became my focus. I wanted to be the smart kid, so I only asked the questions that would directly help my scores.
That’s why I think I liked math and science so much, because it’s much more consistent/easy to learn and regurgitate their patterns than it is to write a creative story. How can you quantify creativity? You can’t, but schools still try to.
It’s ironic, because I feel like I’ve learned so much more having been out of school for a few years now. My mind pursued the questions it wanted, and I ended up becoming the last thing I ever expected: a poet.
Also, the way you described how you realized how little you knew and that it made you start to ask questions means you started your journey as a philosopher.
Yeah, that all makes sense.
Do you think without school, you would have still asked the same questions afterwards?
I think it’s both fun and maddening to ask myself those types of questions. “If I hadn’t done x would I have ever gotten to y?”
And whoa. Never would have identified as a philosopher.
I think I would have still had the same general questions, but the intermittent questions would have been different.
The way I see it, all philosophy (ie questions) lead to the same answer, it’s just how long and which path it takes you. Kinda like how rivers eventually lead to the ocean, but each experience going down them is completely different.
And I’ll give credit where credit is due. Without school, I wouldn’t have learned how to answer those questions, or at least as well as I can now. Math and science is really good at teaching you how to ask and answer questions with as little bias as possible, so it let’s your observations shape your world view, and not the other way around.
Interesting.
For some reason the idea that every question leads to the same answer is really forcing me think. Haha, I’ll have to chew on that some more.
Yeah, I think labeling myself as anything “professional” feels weird.
One way to look at it is that asking a question leads to the truth. And one truth can’t disagree with another, otherwise it wouldn’t be called the truth. And even if the answers aren’t in the same words, they imply the same thing, just from a different point of view.
Paradoxes are probably the best way to learn truths. Because when two equally true ideas oppose each other, then a third truth must exist that connects them. Not only do you understand the original two truths better, but you’ve also gained another truth/point of view you never knew existed.
You did a good job at explaining that. I think it’s just one of those things that mess with my mind even though it makes sense. Hahaha
♡Sugar☆World☮ 
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