Humility

    Somehow I ended up as a TA in the Physics department here. In a way it makes perfect sense because I’m studying Physics and education, so it seems like teaching Physics even if it’s just helping people with homework is a perfect fit. On the other hand, when I took Physics last year, I got a decent grade, but it wasn’t because I did a great job on homework.  Most weeks I spent hours staring at questions for time periods best measured in multiples of ten minutes, then wandering around campus looking for people who knew more than I did.  I’m hoping that being a slow learner might make me a better teacher because every time I learn something, I have to think about it ten different ways.  So when I try to describe something, I already know ten different ways to think about it.  It’s a theory anyway.  Last night I ran a help session which was admittedly a bit of a mess.  Everyone who came in had trouble with the same problem which was good because I practically had it memorized by the end.  Unfortunately, one student figured it out pretty quickly, but for some reason I thought he had done it wrong so I made him redo parts of his problem over and over again.  A few other students needed help with the same problem who described the method of answering correctly, but after they left, I realized they had come up with the wrong answer.  At the end another student came in for a few minutes, got off to a good start and then had to leave before she got very far.  Maybe you’ve had the feeling on a test where you know how to approach a problem, you had it figured out before and everything made sense, but then when you look at that paper and the miniature characters waiting for action, you realized that you really have no idea whether the answer is a or c.  You could guess, but there’s more at stake here than usual and you really don’t want to take that risk.  That feeling hit me when I was trying to explain how to find the x component of a hockey puck’s velocity.  There were too many options.  I knew our options were: original or complementary angle, sine or cosine, adjacent or opposite and horizontal or vertical.  For some reason I couldn’t decide which ones corresponded with the others.  Unfortunately, every time I changed my mind, bewildered freshmen flipped their pencils upside down and smudged out another set of figures which had just started to look promising.

    Today in my Thermal Physics class, Dr. Poelarends came prepared to give a lecture on Chapter T5 of our textbook.  Soon he realized that according to our schedule we weren’t supposed to have read a chapter, but we were supposed to be doing an in class activity.  We ended up doing the activity, but you could tell he was slightly embarrassed and not entirely comfortable.  I’m not sure how sympathetic I would have been under normal circumstances, but I can tell you that today, I could really feel I with him.

    I think Matt DuMee said it first in a speech at my graduation, either that or something he said in his speech made me think of it.  Regardless if this maxim is not already known it should be, that humility is the best defense against humiliation.  For Gregory’s sake I’ll define these terms to suit my purposes.  Humility is having a realistic opinion of yourself and portraying yourself honestly to others.  Humiliation occurs when other people realize that you are not as good as you want them to think you are.  For example, when you tell the guys at the park about that free throw contest you won, then you shoot the ball over the backboard… that’s humiliating.  If you had just shot the ball in the first place, without trying to impress everyone, no one would have been disappointed in your ability or lack thereof.  Two Biblical passages come to mind one from Proverbs, “let another praise you and not your own mouth” and the warning not to take the best seat in the house, but to sit on the floor and let the host move you to the seat of honor.  Interesting.  You go to the back of the line, and maybe you’ll get a free pass to the front.  It seems like your proper place has already been decided by the host, so you can either make her move you up or down.  You don’t get to decide your absolute position but you can determine your direction of motion.  For some reason, you’re both happier if you give her the opportunity to promote you rather than displace you….  But you should know your place about as well as the host does right?  I mean you should know whether you’re in her top ten list or whether you’re the guy who just fits in better at the kids’ table.

    I think just about everyone has an overinflated image of themselves.  All your strengths, weaknesses, struggles, inches, ounces and stories are bigger to you than they are to anyone else, except perhaps a lover.  It comes back to the idea of perspective.  From your perspective the universe really does revolve around you, because by definition, everything you see is from your point of view.  Really, it is just as likely to revolve around you as any other 2x1x.5 meter section of space, but no one else is going to see it the way you do.  You might say that a lot of people today have low self-esteem and don’t need any more humility.  On the contrary, if you have low self-esteem, humility is exactly what you need.  Your weight, zits and stutter are not as big as they seem.  They may seem like lakes that are deep enough to drown in, but it turns out they’re merely puddles.  Of course, you can still drown, but only if you bury your face in them and breathe deeply.  I’m not trying to minimalize self-esteem issues, I’m just saying that the problem may be based more in focusing on your own problems.  There may be exceptions to the humiliation rule at the point where human dignity is violated.  At that point, when you have reasonable expectations of image and treatment, a certain amount of indignation may be reasonable and dutiful when those expectations are violated.

    Humility in opinions is important.  When you arrogantly say that your opinions are unquestionably correct, you place your limited perspective above that of another person’s.  Refusing to give ear to another perspective is ridiculous because another limited human being is likely to have a better vantage point than I do.  On the other hand, humility is inappropriate in some discussions.  If you represent an authority on the subject in question, you really should not change your opinions very easily.  Simply giving in to everyone you disagree with is flat out wishy-washy.  For example, when I run a TA session, in theory I represent the Wheaton College Physics department, which is presenting the dominant view of physicists who have much greater authority than I do or the students currently taking the class.  I guess the fundamental juxtaposition here is one of humility and confidence, but in order to represent the department well, I need to study to show myself an approved TA with no reason to be ashamed of my position as it is founded on the authority of others in whom I have confidence. 

    You may have noticed this already, but the last paragraph may be applied to theological discussions as well by replacing most of the nouns.  The other day I was talking to Bryce about the word dogma.  I think dogma is any position you hold that is based on authority which you don’t think should be questioned.  Bad dogma is founded on flimsy authority.  Good dogma is based on good authority.

    I think this would be an appropriate post to mention that I really don’t know what I’m talking about.  These are just the directions my mind goes sometimes.  I’m not dogmatic about much that I say on this blog, but I’d love to know if it even sounds reasonable.  Comments and e-mails are a great method of contradiction.

Obsessionism

    It’s that time of year, that time just between the scintillatingly drowsy summer and the numbingly focused winter.  These are the days when I add event after repeating event into my calendar and marvel at how many blank spaces there are that I know will be filled by study time, casual social time, time spent wondering how to best spend my time and more time wondering why I didn’t spend my time as well as I should have.  Right now though, I’m cautiously optimistic, mostly because even if I am overwhelmed by the amount of work I have, I think I’ll enjoy my work and the people I work with.  As far as I can tell, there are only two things that are clear in foresight and hindsight, the quality of the work you do and how much you enjoy it.  I’m using a pretty broad definition of work.  It could include conversations, hobbies, and games along with manual labor and paper shuffling.

    As I schedule my next few months and make decisions about what is important enough to devote a few hours to every week, priorities are an unfortunate necessity.  I’ve never really liked prioritizing.  Of course I have preferences.  I like certain foods and flavors more than others. I have friends that are closer than others whom I feel more comfortable around.  Some topics interest me more than others.  But I’ll eat just about anything.  At a party I usually talk to the person within the shortest radius.  My bookshelf holds Emerson’s Essays, War and Peace, and Black simultaneously.  On the other hand, those are outliers and diverse bookshelves are pretty much standard issue at a liberal arts college like Wheaton. 

    There’s an exchange in National Treasure that goes something like this:

Riley: Anyone crazy enough to believe us isn’t going to want to help.

Ben: One step short of crazy, what do you get?

Riley: Obsessed.

Ben: Passionate.

    So let’s say passionate is one step short of obsessed.  It’s an interesting thought.  Passion is good, drive allows you to accomplish things, but somehow too much passion is no longer useful.  In fact, it’s annoying, counterproductive and dangerous.  We only use the word obsessed in extreme cases.  If someone is willing to remortgage their house to see a Hannah Montana concert we say they’re obsessed.  If it isn’t as extreme, we might say their priorities are out of order.  Or an economist like Andrew would say that they are not accurately balancing the costs and benefits.  It’s as if they picked one value and made it into a trump.  In card games if a suit is a trump it means it’s value is unnaturally inflated.  So a two of spades might beat a king of diamonds.  The king is really a higher card, but the two of spades is trumped so it can beat anything from another suit.  Most people think off houses as more valuable than concert tickets, but apparently somebody assigned trump status to Hannah Montana.

    Some trumping may be appropriate.  For example, heavenly priorities trump earthly priorities.  Regardless of the earthly benefits, if an action causes spiritual harm, the net affect is negative.  For example people have a spiritual element to them.   Money does not.  If your closest friend was going to die unless you paid all of your money to save their life, would the amount of money really make any difference?  Natural human perspectives blow monetary, physical benefits out of proportion.  To be really balanced, we have to compensate by underemphasizing things like financial success and personal achievement.  Physical training is of some value, but there are bigger obstacles out there than defensive linemen.

    I think any sort of “-ism” implies an obsession or at least an overemphasis.  For example, a nationalist will tend to put the good of the country above the good of the world or their community.  A pragmatist forgets that morality and aesthetics are valuable.  Relativism takes the true ideas that objects and ideas can be viewed from different perspectives and it declares that there is no universal perspective.

    I started thinking if I would classify myself as any kind of “–ist.”  Interestingly, no form of the words Christian or Evangelical contains the suffixes –ist or –ism.  However, in the third chapter of the Dictionary, I found some terms like “Calvinism,” “Conservatism” or “Constitutionalism” which didn’t bother me much.  Afterwards I started noticing a pattern.  In general, people who claimed the term “Calvinism” tended to place a lot of emphasis on the doctrines of predestination and depravity.  Meanwhile, others who held to the same beliefs but seemed to have their list of priorities in better order preferred to refer to themselves as “reformed” or as “believers in the doctrines of grace.”

    I’m not saying that it’s always wrong to be an –ist.  there probably are some good –isms that I’ve passed over.  In fact, I would love to see some counterexamples in the comments.  But in the English language –isms tend to be used for obsessions.  Meanwhile as evangelicals hunt for idols to tear down in their lives, might I humbly suggest that they double check their –isms to make sure they have not expanded beyond their proper place.