I am a failure.
What type of success do we expect from expressing or feeling the above sentiment?
I will succeed.
Who does better on a given task, the person who admonishes their failing self, or the one willing to succeed?
Our bodies react to that stimuli. Endorphins are released into the body, or kept from it with every decision. What about it though, you may ask? Simple, does a smoker feel better before or after a smoke? After. Does a heavy drinker act the same way before drinking for the day as they do after having had a drink? They do not act the same. The brain conforms to our environment as much as it does from drugs, hormones, and even thoughts (which lead to the release or not of other chemicals in the brain/body).
Everyone can’t be a doctor. One reason for that is that we do not all like the same things, and most of the time liking something allows us to do better at that thing, pay attention to it, deliver, and even influence others through our dedication or portrayal of ourselves while performing. Thus, if a doctor were to come into the room in which we wait, while said doctor being upset, doesn’t care to listen to us, and with an attitude tells us to take medication to feel better, it is fair to say that we would be skeptical about the diagnosis -if any- or even the medication. However, if a doctor walked in with a smile, listened to us, and explained to us why we should take the same medication prescribed in the previous example, we would -with a much higher likelihood- follow up with the treatment and subsequently feel better.
What changed? Was it really the situation that changed? The approach? Or was it simply our perception? What is it when people say “the means to an end”? It all boils down to being able to do something in such a way that the end we desire is reached. In other words, if we wanted medication and medication was given to all people who came to the emergency room, then the end was met by following the criteria most likely to delivery in our expectations. What happens in between shouldn’t have an impact. Why then do we allow it? Is there a better version of ourselves? Are we truly the same friend to everyone? What makes me better or worse than someone else? What separates me from the sociopath?
Are you really dense enough to think that your decision-making is better or more centered than someone else’s? If, as we have seen in the aforementioned, we react to our environment, then what exactly makes you believe that your intelligence or lack thereof has any bearing on your demeanor, or expression of self when others are involved? Are you better merely because you have a higher understanding? Are you worse off because your schooling was hampered by a family that deemed working-to-survive more important? Did you care to think that your understanding is superfluous to those you see as being intellectually impaired compared to you? Did you think that your lack of knowledge led you to make an irrational decision? Have you considered that the likelihood of a misunderstanding is higher with the common misconception that you are right and they are not?
There are those who refuse medical treatment under the guise of religiosity of sorts. Is that right or wrong? What else are you poised to decide for others if you truly believe that someone else is not right because they do something different than you? Does that mean that everyone in your family ties their shoes in the same fashion? Everyone does the bunny-ear method? If not, are they wrong? Does merely attempting something different drive home the idea that you are right and they must not? Where exactly does comprehension come in?
If in fact there lies a difference of opinion, ideas, views, and ways in which to approach different stimuli then what has anyone done to approach the divide? Is someone more right, just because they have attended a place of higher learning? What are the results of the actions taken? Is the end being achieved?
I agree with you, achieving the end in the quickest of ways, less obtrusive means, or otherwise is a challenge and may not be proper. The best way to study cadavers is to have them in the first place. Alright, why do we need cadavers to begin with? Pretend we’re talking about medical students if it makes you feel better. If we create the cadavers, just because we wish to justify the end, we would possible get in trouble. If we want a good grade in an exam, cheating is the easiest and less injurious way in which to achieve the end. However, the end of taking the exam -one could say- is to test your on knowledge obtained/received. Thus, cheating defeats both the means and the end. It defeats the means because, if cheating I’ll succeed is the premise, then cheating does not get us to to succeed because succeed only implies that cheating is the means to succeeding overall, applied to all exponential things in which one could in fact succeed. While it makes perfect sense, so does the example in which needing cadavers for testing could mean we create the cadavers -kill a few people- and we have them. When talking about the end, in saying if cheating I’ll succeed, succeeding is only taking into consideration the cheating, thus you would be achieving what the premise involves, but not what you set out to do which was learning. That unless of course you take a class to cheat, or you take a class to take exams, or other method not conducive to learning; for if we’re not taking classes to learn then what is the end? A class is merely the precedent to a diploma. If obtaining a diploma is then the end, then does if cheating I’ll succeed still apply? Possibly not, because the premise must then change to something like if I cheat I will get a diploma, which has a lot of problems in itself; this presents the notion that the presented is fact to an understandable degree. Succeed to whatever means necessary regardless of consequence does seem to pose a few problems.
When something is attached to something else, say a water molecule H2O, the molecules exist on their own, without the need for one another and we should not assume that just because they become something else under the right conditions that those are the only conditions, or even the only results; it just happens that something facilitated the condition for the two things to come together.
To think is to success and failure as to swim is to drown. You must float in order to successfully not drown. However, we surmise that the premise, being understood as being complete, must be the only notion, a notion that cannot be questioned, something to immediately just act upon. Because everything is not a philosophical question or example in that we actually have to live and in fact answer these questions given our faults and successes, then we should agree that a modicum of understanding must be available to any party in order to succeed according to individual precedent and not a standard that would be unfair to some and truly competitive for others. If that were the case it would be unfair. It would be as unfair as basing the notion of getting a diploma if a person applying all their learned material before a panel of knowledgeable individuals does well, and of someone having no knowledge presented before the same panel does well within their given parameters; for a diploma carrier stipulations and criteria that must be met in order to obtain it. Put plainly, to explain to a boy who has never seen the ocean, a pool, river, or other body of water, that swimming -and all it entails- is the way in which one traverses said bodies does not inherently teach the boy to swim merely because an explanation is available. The comprehension of the scenario by the boy also is futile in any efforts to swim. Moreover, teaching the boy about the strength of waves, currents, temperature of the different bodies, and etcetera, however useful does not help the boy traverse the waters via swimming any better. As you may have pondered by now, there are also other methods of transport through water, floating, through vehicles, and others. This information, because is not readily available, because it is unknown, and because it is missing from the equation only means that if confronted with the scenario the person will use the methods they have been bestowed with in order to solve the problem. Also, because they may not have access to all the information -others may have- it may push their innovation to reach areas we have already studied and marked as useful, others we already know to result in failure, and even other successes which we would have otherwise never come upon. The perception upon the data presented is as important as the knowledge carried.
I agree with you that the boy could not have gotten to the table before having drunk water. However, drinking water has little if any bearing in having to interact with the water for any other purpose other than to satisfy thirst where the boy is concerned. So, when it is said that a basic knowledge or understanding must be first present in order for a person to traverse any scenario, it means that the person must first come to an understanding if the thing presented is safe, if it has odor, can be consumed, what is the texture of it, how is it similar in shape to other things, and what temperature it expels, among other things. That information is enough information to go forward to other exploratory notions, but only if necessary. I wouldn’t want to attempt to eat it if there were other things available for sustenance purposes. I wouldn’t have a need to use it as defense against the elements if other things were in place. So on as it goes due to methods in which we apply reason.
First we do not want to cause harm unto ourselves, especially if there are no viable methods to treat said harm. Second, we would rather avoid pain and unnecessary agony when possible, it simply does not feel good. Third, there are no imminent gains in the unknown. For a farmer boy, other than for the elation that swimming may bring, there is no purpose in swimming. The boy has yet to learn about the dangers of jellyfish, shark, barracuda, eels, urchins, reef, tides, or other threats. However, because the boy has yet to learn about those, he may be more inclined to explore. Therein lies one of the most prominent values to the nature of a human: curiosity.
Argue with me about curiosity. What do you know to be a fact? To whatever you state I posit that, however right you are, whatever proof you offer for that fact, there is also proof to the opposite. That does not mean that some dabble in right and some in wrong. It merely pushes some to overcome the fact and seek fact on their own means. This results in myriad of things. The problem is that like in statistics in which you can choose from the data what to portray, the same occurs with those whom while curious without any schooling in the matter go searching for answers to something they do not have an understanding for. Let’s use the boy and our example to extrapolate the present view. If the boy were presented with a small boat not on the water but on shore, however the boy had been allowed to go in the water and experience how he sunk the further in he went, would be boy be wrong in assuming the boat would also sink? If someone told him that the boat in fact would sit atop the water floating, is the boy supposed to take that as proof? Would the mere word of a stranger he doesn’t know, care about, or has shown him anything that makes sense be enough? Perhaps not. If however, the boy was given some classes instead of a tale, about how buoyancy affects different things, surfaces, density of objects, shown some examples, performed some tests, and acquired the necessary knowledge through trial and error, maybe then could the boy take the person at their word that the boat actually floats.
Not knowing, forming basic assumptions about sinking, and denial of facts would be commonplace for this child as well as many others. However, there will be the curious one that will in fact explore the possibility of the said being true and thus taking the boat into the water without a second thought. This curious nature in us is in part what drives discovery. Does that make either of the children in our examples silly, dumb, or stupid? No. Lack of knowledge does not make one anything other than less knowledgeable.
The ability to be able to learn things via schooling, opportunity, endowment, or other is the detriment to which many fall when judging others for something, anything, and everything. The fact behind that is that those making the judgment too lack the knowledge, not to be confused with empathy, to understand that which they judge.
Given our facts, if an alien race discovered Earth, or whatever nomenclature they used to identify discovery, and saw our inability to do things they can such as interstellar travel, would they take the time to explain themselves, their technology, or other things? Using the explained premise and arguments it would almost be futile to explain to either party the intelligent or the not-so-intelligent what things could be, which they do not themselves have any proof of which would in turn lead to doubt, among other things such as the complete denial of the event. Our perception of the newly introduced stimuli in many cases charges us with questions, hope, and so much more. Thus, the alien would be better off providing elements which would help ascertain truth before any truth is given. Call it a class in something unknown. It will probably challenge some known facts, but the new fact is that the given example justifies the clarity of the new data, however improbable it can seem at first glance. Call us in this alien encounter a child who has never before seen or touched a body of water being presented with a ship -still on land- carrying hundreds of 18 foot containers filled with food and other heavy objects; it would be impossible for that to float, let alone traverse anything. Either curiosity leads us to explore the matter deeper, see the presented data by the aliens as a learning tool and further analyze it, or just cheat and just take them at their word without listening or observing a thing before us.
Back at the beginning now, because I am a failure I will do what I believe is necessary to fulfill an end I seek based on my knowledge and understanding of it, and because I will succeed I will allow my curiosity to explore that which may be unknown in order to obtain new data which will allow me to achieve my goal. I am what I am today not because of the things I have done, the material I have learned, or the experiences that befall me, but rather because of the choices I have made when presented with something.
