dear kenyon college:

Due to the nature of this speech, there wasn’t really much to question. This isn’t expanding on a deeply rooted philosophical theory, its just showing students who are ready to “go out into the world” the various ways to see a certain situation. This article, as far as I can see, points out many important things about being conscious of perspective.

The following are quotations that particularly stood out at me, either because they illustrate that point, or because they just seemed particularly accurate in my eyes.

“The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. I have learned this the hard way, as I predict you graduates will, too.”

“…learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.”

Possibly my favorite quote from this selection was:

“The thing is that, of course, there are totally different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stopped and idling in my way, it's not impossible that some of these people in SUV's have been in horrible auto accidents in the past, and now find driving so terrifying that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive. Or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he's in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way.

Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket's checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.”

My personal nature is to look at different ways of thinking. I don’t see much use for dwelling on how poorly prepared the dining hall food is on a given night, when, meanwhile, the children in Darfur would most likely give a limb to have an open-access meal plan. I really appreciated reading a cohesive monologue about thinking in a different way. I personally think that one of the biggest parts of educating yourself is to learn to see something from someone else’s shoes (even if that’s strictly limited to interpersonal intelligence). The only real evidence I have to back myself up is any experience I’ve had with a particularly self centered, or particularly biased person. If they cannot concede even slightly and acknowledge the strength of the opposing argument, they seem less intelligent.