Best Teacher Ever
One of the most impressive professors I had in college was somebody that I completely didn’t expect to be impressive. He was a very old guy, he taught philosophy 101. When I started college, I took a bunch of classes in my major and took a bunch of classes that were general requirements.
The general requirement classes, I didn’t really pay that much attention to. I didn’t think there were that important, but one of them was this philosophy 101 class and this guy had the most profound effect on me.
Not just the way he taught but the actual stuff he taught and how he taught it. It was something that I’ve always remembered even though college was a couple jillion years ago.
Titanic Sinking
When the Titanic sank it was obviously, when it was sinking and people were scrambling for the lifeboats, nobody really could predict what a kind of a worldwide event it would be. One of the tragedies of courses there was not nearly enough lifeboats.
There was kind of a mad scramble to see who could get on a lifeboat. People who didn’t would end up drounding. There’re all kinds of stories of how that might have happened. One of the guys that made and onto the lifeboats was this Japanese guy. When this guy finally made his way back to Japan his life was ruined.
There is an idea of meta-programs in NLP. Meta-programs are kinda like these filters that we keep. These filters, these these meta-programs are kind of ways that we view the world. One of these meta-programs is how we prefer how we most respond to validation.
External Validation
Most of us naturally respond to validation that comes externally to us meaning if we get praise from our peers that will motivate us more than anything but some people have, very few number people, are truly validated by only their internal praise of themselves.
A lot of people like to believe that there validated by things internal to themselves but most people are actually very very responsive to getting praise from other people.
The most important plot element, probably one of the most important plot elements in the hero’s journey story as described by Joseph Campbell and what he called the monomyth, is when the hero realizes that the fight against the villain is more important than his own life. It’s when he realizes that killing the villain, even if he fails trying to do that, is more important than living itself.
Bigger Than Us
That’s kind of a reflection of our deep instinct to feel like we are part of something much more important than ourselves. It’s a reflection of the deeper instinct that helped us to survive in harsh times back in the days of hunter-gatherers.
It’s that same feeling that makes us feel really good when we feel like we’re part of something greater. When we feel like we’re part of something much more noble than ourselves. When we feel like we’re part of some type of magnificent story that is in the process of unfolding and we just kind of go along for the ride and do our best to play our part.
Usually the hero’s journey has three kind of sections. The first section is where the hero was an orphan. The second section is where the hero is kind of figuring out who he is, he’s figuring out his skills, he’s meeting his friends, he’s deciding and then discovering who the bad guy is.
Fighting To The Death
The last part, the most important part, this is the shortest part, this is where the hero actually does battle with the villain. This is when he decides that fighting the villain is more important than life itself.
This is something this is an instinct that lives in everybody. We all crave to express this instinct. We all crave to find these situations where we feel like were part of something really really important.
One of the insights that Napoleon had was that men will die for ribbons. What this meant is that if his soldiers were fighting on the battlefield and during the battle they remembered that the previous battle after the previous battle the best the most courageous the most brave the most valiant soldiers were given ribbons in front of their peers.
Men Will Die For Ribbons
This external validation, this memory of this external validation, was enough to spur them to fight much more courageously even to the point of death. Despite Napoleon not being the best military strategist in the world he was very very insightful and knowing how to motivate his troops.
He knew that if he praised them in front of their peers after the battle that would motivate them in subsequent battles to the point of death. That’s exactly what he meant when he said men will die for ribbons.
When the Titanic sank this was back when Japan was still in there kind of militaristic bushido samurai mindset, which meant that you must embrace and accept death when it comes. This is the whole kind of idea that led to the idea of seppuka, to slice open your belly and then have your buddy chop off your head. That was much more preferable than being taken captive or admitting defeat.
Lifeboat Mistake
When this guy survived on the Titanic, when he managed to stumble his way onto the lifeboat and he got back home to Japan he was absolutely shunned because when people realized that he was on the Titanic and he lived while a lot of other people died nobody wanted to have anything to do with him.
Once upon a time he was a very wealthy very respected professional. I think he might’ve been a doctor. Something inside of them said this wasn’t quite what he wanted to do in this life even though he was going to getting a lot of respect, a lot of validation, a lot of approval from other people. He decided that something was missing inside.
He decided to become a philosophy teacher and by the time I took this course he was very very old. It was obvious by the clothes he was wearing he didn’t make a lot of money. He was one of the most passionate teachers I’ve ever met. When he talked about the stuff he was teaching you could tell he really really enjoyed talking about the stuff he was teaching.
Supreme Passion
I was impressed not only with his energy and charisma but the way he brought the ideas across. These philosophical ideas which, had I read them in a book I might not even have remembered them, but some of the stories he taught us some of the books that we read had the biggest impression on me.
One thing that I always remembered about him is that he would always pause and look at the class and say, “I don’t know much about a hydrogen atom but I know about how people think. I know about human nature.” He said it was such profound seriousness that it made me feel embarrassed that I was a physics student.
I thought I was the coolest kid in class because I was studying physics but he made it sound like understanding science was basic and simple and not very impressive but understanding human nature is the most important thing one can do.
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