To Be Versus to Seem

Dear colleague,

A friend sent me this article on AI recently, titled “Subcontracting Our Minds.” In case the title doesn't make it obvious, the author is not an AI optimist.

Though I found the author's arguments compelling, what I loved most was his surfacing of an old Rousseau argument that it is necessary “to be or to seem.”

What an education offers — and a life, for that matter — comes down to a daily decision: today, do I want:

• To be a learner, or to seem like one?
• To be a grateful person around the Thanksgiving dinner table, or to seem like one?
• To be a good father, or to seem like one?

It reminds me of a Warren Buffett idea I wrote about years ago, his “inner scorecard”:

The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. I always pose it this way. I say: ‘Lookit. Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think you're the world's worst lover? Or would you rather be the world's worst lover but have everyone think you're the world's greatest lover?'” (from The Snowball)

You could pose Warren's question a bit differently to make it match Rousseau's:

• Would you rather seem like a great teacher, or actually be one?
• Would you rather seem like a grateful person, or actually be one?
• Would you rather seem like a wise person or a person of peace, or actually be one?

It seems to me that in my classes this year, I am continually drawn to putting this question before my students: Would you like to be a stronger, more capable, more agile thinker, reader, writer, speaker, person…or do you just want to keep doing just enough to seem like one?

Now, of course, many students hear questions like this and shrug.

Meh. I'm just here. Just doing my thing. Just trying to pass classes.

But as we end the third full month of this school year, I remain convinced of the central thesis of The Will to Learn — all students want to want to learn. All students want to want to be.

And this brings us to the final quotation that's got me grateful for you today, colleague: a line from poet/novelist Ben Okri, courtesy of James Clear's 3-2-1 Newsletter:

Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.

I think on Thanksgiving, it's a good time to remind ourselves that so much of our experience of life comes down to the stories we tell ourselves. A story I've had to remind myself of too many times to count this school year is that my students want to want to be stronger students. When I keep trying to cast a vision for them (via mini-sermons), to Woodenize effective learning and living for them, to define success in a “no top to the mountain” kind of way…I'm patiently planting seeds they want to take root in their hearts and minds.

It is hard work, cultivating care in the hearts of human beings. But in the end, it does produce fruit if we do not give up.

Take some deep breaths this holiday. Take some time to tell yourself the stories that make you more grateful, more hopeful, more contented in the labors you have undertaken and on Monday you shall undertake again. We will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Thankful for you today,

DSJR