Madeline Zuckerman Professor Oliver The Intelligible Self Monday, December 12th, 2022 From Then to Now: Self-Evaluation Looking over my first questionnaire, I came to the realization that I answered each question wrong. You may ask me how I can answer questions wrong when the barometer for being right is simply effort. But, based on that metric, I did not understand the purpose of the question and did not push myself to fully explore myself. I find that I am a rational, logical person, almost to a fault. I struggle with exploring my emotions and, even after attending therapy for the past year, still feel as if I answer all my own problems with my own solutions. I questioned going into this class — what is the value of meditation? Why does this self-exploration matter, if I will still follow the same sell-out, corporate life? I slowly realized over the past nine weeks how important this self-discovery was to both sort through my own issues and find solace in what I can and cannot control. I also felt a sense of belonging with my classmates during discussions; my biggest fears and thoughts about the world are more widely shared than I thought. We all seemed to be perfectionists, anxious about carrying on our families’ expectations, and feared not leaving an impact on a cruel world. From knowing that I am not alone, I feel more comfortable exploring and expressing what holds me back, as these thoughts seem to hold everyone back. What am I? Professor Oliver challenged my view of being “a Jewish girl from New York” by presenting a scientific understanding of the atoms in my body and the entropy of the universe. While I tend to see myself as blonde, female, and maybe having a large nose, reading about the origins of the universe taught me the beauty in my body, seeing my cells as an utter triumph against the randomness of the world. I also recognized that my atoms have been reused over generations, with different species, and in expansive geographies. This sense of sameness and shared experience reflects the beauty of the human condition in that we are not alone and we will survive as have generations before us. Similar to finding the similarities during class discussions, our biological similarities and reused air molecules we pass back further connected me to my classmates and the world around me. Regarding entropy, it is overwhelming and terrifying to think that the world came from nothing and will tend back towards nothing; every structure we build will fall, from the Tower of Babel to maybe the White House. However, I calm myself and seek comfort in what that insinuates about the human condition. We know we may fail and will eventually be meaningless, but we still seek perfection and achieve milestones. What is my purpose? During class discussions, we had many aspiring lawyers, teachers, politicians, and investment bankers in the class. We all sought intellectually-demanding careers but also expected to find greater fulfillment through our families and friends. However, this seems like a cop-out answer to me — just a good job and good relationships? Is this all that my existence means? While I agree with the merits of what we discussed in class, there are so many people who are high-achieving and enjoy good relationships, but still might not feel fulfilled. This reminded me of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in which our baseline needs are food, water, and shelter, decreasing in clarity or obviousness until the top which is full transcendence. I hope to achieve some sort of transcendence or lifelong realization beyond just having a high-earning job and a loving family. While I do not know what that looks like, I have found great fulfillment in pursuing passions unrelated to work or friends, such as running or doing crosswords. While these hobbies are certainly not my purpose, they enrich me beyond being an animalistic or machine-like form whose only drives are food and sex. Who am I, really? This question then and now throws me for a loop and begs the question to differentiate between what and who I am. In class, we discussed the paradox of the Ship of Theseus, begging the question that, if a ship has each last panel and window replaced for maintenance, is the ship still the same ship as before? This paradox can be applied beyond the shedding and creation of cells each day: when I moved from New York to Chicago for college, was I still the same? When I quit acting and dancing for pursuing finance, was I still the same? After my grandma passed, was I still the same? As the years have passed, we have all experienced a multitude of life events that have molded us into new versions of ourselves and changed how we interact with those around us. As a result, it seems impossible to sum up who I am because that person changes frequently depending on what events and people touch her. Thinking about the different eras of myself often makes me feel unmoored, traitorous, and even embarrassed of the one person I should love the most. While I cannot pinpoint who I am, I can speak to the events that have impacted and formed new sides of myself, painting me as the product of my environment instead of an objective, definitive “me.” What are my dreams telling me? This answer seems to have stood the test of time. I often dream about various anxieties in my life, ranging from pre-finals exam stress or my crush finally asking me out. I have also undergone many nightmares about gun violence and safety, which come from the trauma I experienced when my friend Max Lewis was killed. When I originally wrote this answer, I acknowledged my anxiety dreams, but did not mention my dreams about Max. I shied away from discussing this dream because there is no solution and there cannot be. For my stress-related dreams about tests or my half-marathon, I just went through those stressful events and was fine. For Max, however, there is no neat solution, nor any way to get rid of these dreams. To some twisted extent, I would feel guilty if Max stopped appearing in my dreams; what kind of friend would that make me? Will I one day forget his face and smile altogether? Who is writing my life story? This question made the biggest impact on me, as I had my story written by Francesca. Echoing my earlier point, Francesca and I both wrote similar life stories about finding intellectual joy from Public Forum debate and deriving much happiness and support from our families. One unsettling part about dictating my life’s story was how little ownership I felt over my journey. My dad influenced my career goals, while my mom drove me to appreciate New York and value family. While I would argue that all my choices would still point me in these directions, I still spent a large portion of my story on people who have impacted me, rather than just self-revelations. However, this could be the point of my life’s story. It should be written by other people, rather than having my life be like an island. What makes me happy? Happiness still feels like a useless word to me, especially after focusing my previous paper on pleasure. While food, sex, and drugs can give pleasure, happiness is an all-consuming state of permanent satisfaction and bliss. While we can all experience euphoric moments and seconds of pure bliss, making that state last is a futile quest. I question what would make that state last, as happiness can be the feeling after a long, arduous run or the simple smile that comes across my face when I see a dog. How much do I need to sacrifice to feel happy? Is it rational to expect to be happy all the time or does the feeling lose its magic when it is perpetual? Can my happiness also vary depending on where or who I am at a certain time, thus making happiness conditional? What keeps me from seeing reality? I initially wrote that my anxiety keeps me from seeing reality, but I reflect now that my anxiety is simply a product of the expectations I put on myself. When I wrote my Declaration of Independence from my parents, I realized that I suffer weight from my father’s unspoken expectations for myself: namely, succeed in my career and achieve more than he had the capability or resources to achieve. However, my parents never illustrated their expectations out loud, nor said they would stop loving me should I not achieve something. Instead, I have turned their unspoken expectations into a desire for perfection and an overwhelming need to be liked. This causes me to treat rejection or failed relationships as judgments on myself, instead of, more rationally, judgments on how I fit or simply pure luck. How do I find love? I jokingly wrote that ‘I do not know,’ but, upon reflecting more, I still resonate with my answer. Connecting this to the Ship of Theseus paradox and my constantly changing self, this also alters how I find love. The relationships that worked for me in high school might not translate to college, which might not translate to the working world. As my understanding of myself changes, someone who can love me for my undefinable ‘me’ will also change. Unlike your family who has to love you, we choose our friends and partners, meaning that finding love is easy but sustaining it over your ever-changing self is hard. Where am I going from here?/What is my favorite vehicle of transcendence? While I still struggle with meditation, I am reminded of what Chodron wrote about how she handles anger and life changes. After her divorce from her husband, she leaned into the anger she felt, rather than clinging to the long-gone comfort from her relationship. Rather than viewing this anger as negative or taboo, she used her struggle as a tool to become more peaceful. As I take more classes, start working, and have my own family, I know I will experience a fair amount of misfortune, rejection, and heartbreak. Chodron would take offense with my negative language, arguing instead that “Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever. After we have died, the ebb and flow will still continue.” (40) Instead of viewing events as good or bad, Chodron expands on her Buddhist perspective that samsara is the cycle of how humans expect constant happiness and thus experience suffering when this inevitably does not occur. She finds that we should temper our expectations and take tragedy as something that is, rather than something that is unfair. While tragedy is unfair, we should endure and accept the human condition of suffering for what it is. By leaning into this reality, we cannot have our expectations crushed and cannot feed into our own cycle of samsara. Reflecting on my grade, I would give myself two gold stars. We discussed the gold star trajectory in class, namely our desire as high-achievers to receive accolades and then lose the thrill from our accomplishment. This cycle forces us to keep seeking our next gold star, as we chase the pleasure of a pat on the back from the expectations we put on ourselves. I say two gold stars because this class taught me to enjoy and appreciate the in-between of accomplishments, finding long-lasting acceptance instead. Whether I receive my third gold star or not, I have learned to rely less on my status and more on my relationships and internal metrics of happiness.
