How to become a good student (again) 3: Yearn for friendship - not worship; not debasement
Hello, fellow ex-good student!
âtis done! This beast just got longer and longer, so I decided to cut it down a bit for the sake of readability. But let me know if thereâs something that was too vague - the nuance might have got lost in the editing process.
Alright, letâs get down to business (to defeat! The Huns!)! So, if youâre an ex-good student, Iâm pretty sure that you know this static in your head, right? Whenever you really need to do something but you just canât get up and do it, so you keep procrastinating even though you hate it and keep scrolling and scrolling or gaming and gaming and feel more and more guilty?
Well, it might not be the most immediate analogy, but for this post I want you to consider that what connects you and your subject of study is essentially a relationship and that this static is (among other things) an indicator of how screwed up your relationship is. Just like with real people, your relationships with subjects can either
prosper and bear fruit (me & Creative Writing)
become cold and distant (me & French)
or, worst of all, turn sour and actively harmful. (me & PE, back in school)
Now, nobody likes to hear that theyâre relationship-ing wrong. And it is true that different approaches work for different people. But here are the counter-productive relationships that Iâve personally ended up in and Iâm gonna show you how I got into and out of them, so you can try to do the same. Maybe itâll help you lift that static from your head.
Side-Note: Always remember that, since your subjects are just that (subjects), and not real people, you are the only one who can actually mend these relationships and, conversely, you are the one who screwed them up in the first place (probably with good intentions, though).
So, weâll take them in this order:
(Oh, and in case you wanna catch up:
The desire to do everything, perfectly, at the same time, right now. Not to limit yourself to just one field of study, but to master them all, to reign supreme above knowledge, to keep your mind wide open to new possibilities, similarities and contradictions.
You overvalue your own capacities and undervalue the needs and difficulties of your subject.
(also refer to the first post for this)
(read picture from right to left)
So. Many. Possible. Reasons.
itâs a cage. The idea of doing just one thing for the rest of your life scares you and you feel imprisoned at the thought of it
you know that you could be outstanding if you applied yourself
you know that you could be even more outstanding if you became accomplished in multiple fields
you want to find connections between fields nobodyâs ever considered before
you feel like youâve wasted your last few years and need to catch up to others
youâre afraid that youâre not good enough
youâre afraid of being ignorant
No matter the reason (Iâve gone through them all), people caught in this state of mind shovel more and more onto their plate.
And then wonder why they canât swallow it all.
What do you think youâre doing?
A labour of love, most likely. You think you love languages and sciences and athletics and programming and cooking and hanging out with friends and being alone and so you just want to do it all!
You donât want to limit yourself! You donât want to lose any time! But thereâs just so much and you have so little energy and ugh, if only I wasnât destined for greatness, then I could relax like other little people, but no, I need to keep pushing! In every! Direction! At the same! Time!
I know your delusion. Iâve been there. You imagine yourself to be that one perfect friend who gets up at 6am, watches the sun rise, does yoga, eats a healthy breakfast, goes for a quick run, comes back home, answers all correspondence, is artistic for a few hours, then scientific for a few hours, then social for a few hours and ends the day with tiny masterpieces in each area, goes out with friends or family to grab a healthy dinner and goes to sleep, happy and balanced :)
Well, you know what, my starry-eyed friend?
What are you actually doing?
Youâre the mental equivalent of a social butterfly.
Youâre being fucking disrespectful.
Youâre always on the run and never able to really commit to anything, because youâve already scheduled something else afterwards. Youâre shallow, deluded, that one friend that always comes in running, screaming âBesties  ~ â„â and everyone shifts uncomfortably in their seats and smiles a painful smile and humours you, because they know you mean well, but they also know that you know nothing about them.Â
Youâve never been there for them ever, but always expect them to be there for you. Whenever they want to talk about themselves, you nod and then proceed to about yourself and your plans and âohmygosh, this is so nice, we need to meet more often ~ â„ â. But at least you mean well, so theyâve agreed to keep it simple and on the âThe weather is nice todayâ-level with you.Â
But here you are, wondering why youâre not making any progress.
Mysterious.
Well, you need to go from this:
This stage is what happens when you notice that your lofty ideals from Overeager Debasement cannot be fulfilled. You turn bitter, hateful, cold. You think youâre a failure, you think you were too soft. Instead of wanting to be friends with everyone, you now want to rule over everyone, fuck what they want.
Youâre burnt out. Youâre done. You just want to get through these stupid classes and catch a goddamn break, goddamnit.
And you WILL get through. Youâre too proud to do anything else. But you donât really care about any of it.
You just want to make it.
If you were a good student, you probably heard at some point or another that you were âdifferentâ and that your complex and mysterious ways were not understandable and definitely not achievable for your average classmate.
Most people who tell you this mean well. A few want to make fun of you, but most actually do mean it as a compliment. But they donât know how dangerous it is to hear it again and again, because regardless of whether itâs true or not, you start to believe it.
You start to believe that somehow, you have a higher calling, a higher standard. And you start to long for that day when your high standards will be met - when you will go to that one mysterious class where everyone is just as eager as you are, where the âOh, captain, my captain!â-teacher will spark a fire in your brain that will never go out and when your ominous âgiftsâ can finally be put to good use for the prosperous future of mankind.
And the class never comes.
You feel the weight on your shoulders when teachers talk of âhigh expectationsâ, you feel it crush you a little bit every time your friends tease you about your genuine fear that you might not get an A, that you might lose it all, that your âgiftsâ could disappear and youâll be stranded and useless and you put in the hours, you work your ass off to keep that high standard, all in the hope of having that one miraculous class that never comes.
I realized that that class would never come when I entered university.
University, Iâd told myself, would be my Arcadia, my Eden, my academic paradise where all my hard work would be rewarded!
Instead, I only found more drudgery, more incompetent professors, more disinterested students and even more bureacracy. To say that I was âdisappointedâ would be putting it very lightly.
I became disoriented and disenchanted. I realized that I could get through most classes with half-assed effort, I was hardly ever challenged, I floated along and hated every second of it. I blamed my boring teachers, the imperfect system, the teachers who had given me hope only for me to watch it crash and go up in flames.
What do you think youâre doing?
Being badass, cool and detached, most likely.
You dream of yourself as a master and your subjects as slaves. They bow to your will, they dance to your tune, you command them with the snap of a finger.
âLook, you slave of the systemâ, you say, lying on a velvet sofa, âLook, at how it hardly takes any effort for me to pass these classes! Look at how I spend my time doing things I actually like and that are actually worth it, unlike these stupidly easy classes taught by stupidly incompetent professors in a stupidly screwed-up system! Look at me, being edgy and drowning in self-hatred because I can physically feel myself gliding off the rails that made me so âspecialâ and becoming one of the average people in the masses, haha. Ha. Ha. Screw academia, but still give me good grades, amirite?â
I know your delusion. Iâve been there. You imagine yourself to be that one perfect friend that never studies for classes, comes for three lectures per semester and still manages to get perfect grades because everything you do in school is, like, so five years ago. That one friend who has read all the classics in their spare time, has conquered and enslaved all the knowledge actually worth knowing, will quote obscure Polish philosophers youâve never heard of and plays the piano with a perfect pitch. Theyâre the wisest, most culture-non-conforming people you know - theyâve been up until 5am, wandering the streets and drinking vodka from a bottle while forcefully pentrating the mysteries of the universe all by themselves until they finally fall asleep on a park bench and awake with an epiphany about Klein bottles.
Theyâre âspecialâ.
What are you actually doing?
Caring more about appearing âspecialâ than actually trying to be âspecialâ, thatâs what youâre doing.
But, look, what made you so âspecialâ and âdifferentâ in the first place was not a âcallingâ or âgiftsâ or the fact that you wrote good grades and were destined for greatness.
Hereâs a handy chart Iâll use later - you were lucky enough to fall into the green zone, lucky enough to be born with an innate respect and a love for learning. Thatâs what made you âspecialâ. Thatâs what made you succeed. Not pressure, not warped ideals and certainly not the fear of failure.
But somewhere along the way you forgot that and only focussed on the results. You started to believe yourself to be so special that everybody else should cater to you.
The fancy titles, the awe-struck looks, the âYouâre so amazingâs and the âThe genius of a decadeâ, the planned Nobel prize speech and the prestige, the dream others had lovingly created for you and you had slowly absorbed and warped as your own? It got to you. Hell, it got to me.
And it became more important than learning itself.
Somewhere along the way, you and I, we became an arrogant and lazy assholes.
You looked down on your easy courses and homework and instead of recognising how lucky you are, doing it in a minute and a half and then putting in the extra work on top to dig deeper and to maybe contribute something of value and fun, you threw it aside with a snide remark as beneath you.
Of course it wasnât fun. Of course it wasnât challenging. You never even tried to make it either.
(And donât get me wrong: I honestly do think that the education system as it is right now needs MAJOR reforms. But right now? It is what it is. And instead of making the best of it and doing what you once loved so much, you succumbed to societal pressures you found yourself unable to fulfill and said âmehâ.
You cared so much about the fame and the title that the relationship itself didnât matter.)
But this isnât the master-slave relationship you imagine it to be.
Itâs a trophy-friendship. Once upon a time, you got on really well with this person and other people loved your friendship. You fell in love with the ideal, with their connections, their money, their prestige, their name on a CV, and you stuck around just for that.
You valiantly ignore the reality of the state of things between you two and take them out only when absolutely needed, only when things are this close to falling apart and so you keep walking a fine, fine line.
Whenever a deadline approaches, you shower them with attention and love and, gingerly, they open up to you and you see a depth and complexity to them that astounds you and makes you think âImagine! Imagine how much more I could have seen if only Iâd started earlier?â
But the moment the crisis has passed, you toss them aside once again.
Because this is enough to make your name.
You may not remember much about these nights or about the person at all, but the only thing that counts is that it will fulfill your âspecialâ prophecy and make you a legend, right?
Well, always remember this:
(read picture from right to left)
Youâre not âspecialâ if you made it to university. Youâre not âspecialâ if youâve made your name.Â
It comes down to a simple choice: do you value appearances over integrity or the other way round? Do you dare to look like a fumbling idiot again when you start something new? Is the âappearing like an idiotâ-part more important to you than the âlearning/creating something newâ-part?Â
Have a think about it.
âAlrightâ, youâll say, âAlright. I get it. So Iâll treat my âfriendsâ/subjects with respect and integrity and Iâll take all the time and concentration I can bestow upon them, just as I would upon real friends. But do you want me to be like, uh - likeâŠ
ââŠlike one of those anime characters that lives only for their dream and gets up at like 6am, does the thing, talks about the thing, breathes the thing, goes to bed, dreams of the thing and then wakes up at 6am to do the thing?â
(Google: Did you mean Hinata Shouyou?
Yes, yes, I did, google.)
Well, no, I donât want you to do that. See, thatâs the other extreme and unless youâre an anime character, chances are that it wonât work out for you.Â
Personally, I was caught in this trap for a loooooong time. Anime offered me a new way of relating to my passions that neither my family nor my school had ever shown me: unabashed obsession.
I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be obsessed. I wanted to give myself up to a higher ideal, something above human consciousness, something that would endure. I wanted to, well, get up at 6am, do the thing, talk about the thing, breathe the thing and so on - âthe thingâ in question being, of course, studying. I made elaborate plans, complicated lists, study-plans that shift on a daily basis and cover all grounds, I wanted to study for two hours before school, wanted to repeat lessons, wanted to give myself up to knowledge, made cool covers for my notebooks, made mock exams for my friends to use, planned to focus on each continent for a month and study it, planned to listen to one new composer each day, planned to go to the museum every week, planned to analyze Sherlock Holmes and think just like him, planned to - you get the idea.
I wanted to be like this:
What do you think youâre doing?
Being but a humble servant to the eternal workings of truth. Knowing thou art unworthy, yet suffering the perfection of study.
I wanted to go from 0 to 100, I wanted knowledge and wisdom to transform and deliver me, I wanted to feel enlightened, I wanted to feel my brain burning, pushing frontiers and breaking through to new horizons, I wanted to elevate myself to touch even the lowest levels of truth.
I wanted to do something noble, something worthwhile, something that could never be critisized and would always be valued, something with eternal meaning that would echo through the ages and I wanted to be even the tiniest cog in the machinery of mind.
What are you actually doing?
Being, quite simply, an idiot.
This is one of my favourite quotes (David Wong):
âThere are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.âÂ
The same goes for studying. As shown above, studying wonât work out if you do not treat your subjects with respect. Conversely, studying also wonât work if you continue to idolize it as work beyond all work and reproach, as the only true calling, as the realm of the genii and by self-flagellating yourself and repeating âIâm but a humble servant in your kingdom of reason and will never reach where you are, but will spend all my time trying to reach you.âÂ
Why? Because by saying âIâll never reach you or be worthy of youâ, youâve already sealed your fate. Some students (no matter how well they actually perform) are stuck thinking that they are stupid and incapable of doing well. Others think that the trick is in the preparation and they undergo complicated rituals of finding exactly the right study spot, exactly the right study drink, exactly the right study time, etc. in the hope of channeling the connection between their godly subject and themselves, but it never turns out quite as glamorous as theyâd hoped (once again, speaking from experience).
This is because you cannot force a true friendship if you think yourself unworthy of it. It will always be worship.Â
And why are you worshipping?
Because it takes the pressure right off of you. This always annoyed me about some of my fellow students. They treated becoming a good student as this miraculous and unlikely event that only happens to the #blessed.
I insisted that ânoâ, it could be done. âYesâ, it was hard work, but ultimately absolutely doable. But now that Iâve been in their shoes? I understand.
Admitting that you could have done it anytime implies failure on your part for not having done it. By saying âOh no, it is so very complex and divine and a lowly worm like me could never hope to crawl in its shadowsâ, you shift the focus away from yourself and onto the thing itself.Â
But this is a synthetic, manufactured relationship with a partner that does not even exist. It is, at its heart, a kyaa  ~ I hope senpai notices me! (àčâĄââĄàč) - kind of relationship. Itâs idolizing not a personâs true character, but their appearance, their aesthetic and the values that they represent for you. Itâs not really listening to what theyâre saying, but warping their words so they fit into your perfect idea of them.
Just, unlike with undereage debasement, you do not play pretend that everythingâs fine and secretly hate the other person deep down - you honestly idolize them to heaven and back, so you could never possible reach them.
Youâre using them to fill in the holes in your own personality.
And that ⊠just isnât fun? I dunno about you, but treating studying as something that must be done perfectly with exactly the right pen and the perfect face-mask after the right smoothie and in the right lighting by a window overgrown with ivy and with perfect concentration from the first moment and unwavering, knightly passion and exact planning from 6am to bedtime all because I know deep down that I will not be able to fulfill these ideals and thus donât have to feel bad about not reaching them just ⊠isnât for me. I donât like my relationships to be all overstructured and âperfectâ and high maintenance like that.
I want my friendships and my studying to be authentic. And that means that sometimes itâs messy and sometimes itâs hard and sometimes itâs quoting Keats while lying on the floor at 2am in the morning and chugging milk out of a carton, but itâs real.
I truly do understand this longing to make studying look pretty and like a magical realm, because when youâre in the flow thatâs really what it feels like. But the beauty comes along with the practice, not the other way round.
No, but honestly - what do I DO then?
Yâremember Hippogriffs from Harry Potter? Thatâs how I imagine my subjects. Approach them carefully, honestly, maintaining eye contact and as equals and they will respect you. This scene:
This scene is what Iâm talking about.Â
If you were in a worship-state, you would only admire them from afar, gushing over how beautiful they are, but sad that they would never deign to even look in your general direction. (think of all the subjects you thought would be way too difficult for you)
If you were in a debasement-state, youâd either try to make friends with all the hippogriffs, hopping from one to the other and forming no bond with either or youâd âtskâ disdainfully and try to force them to obey you against their will. (*cough* Malfoy *cough*)
If, however, youâre in the green, there will be mutual respect between you and you will be able to fly.
So what does it mean to be in the green?Â
It means not to do any of the above, obviously, soÂ
take your time for and invest brainpower into each and every one of your subjects - be a good friend. Be there. Listen. Even if they have crazy ideas at 4am in the morning.Â
appreciate your subjects and know that they are more than the teacher who tries to get you to know them. Sometimes, some people just have a really shitty PR department (especially maths)
donât think too much or too little of yourself. You can do amazing things, but that does not give you the license not to do amazing things anymore, rest on your laurels and expect others to applaud you for it.Â
some relationships take longer than others to build, but getting to understand someone who puzzled you from the first moment and challenged your beliefs will improve your own personality as well
(side-eye at PE. Yes, I love you now, you crazy athletic bastard)
do it for the sake of the relationship itself, because you enjoy their company. Results are presents which, although very much appreciated, should not be the main motivator to keep you going.
This essentially means that you should think of studying as hanging out with a friend - already makes it seem so much more inviting and way less daunting, does it not?
(Logic and I, being saltmates. Real friends judge other people together)
be aware that all friendships go through rocky patches and some subjects might take a while to warm up to you or you to them. But if you think that itâs worth it, then you gotta power through that. If you donât think itâs worth it, you gotta be brave enough to say good-bye.Â
Look, what Iâm actually saying is ⊠be Souma Yukihira from Food Wars.
Food Wars is a crazy and at times pretty pervy manga/anime, but Iâll be damned if it isnât also one of the best pieces of fiction Iâve ever consumed and if Souma isnât one of the most admirable main characters Iâve ever encountered. Â
The relationship between him and cooking is filled with trust, love and equality. He trusts his cooking skills, because he knows that they have spent a long time together - cooking wonât let him down and he wonât ever let cooking down by stopping to look for ways to improve.
That doesnât mean, however, that heâs always deadly serious - he loves to play around with cooking and to try ridiculous new things. He never forgets the joy that even the simplest form of cooking brings him.Â
Thereâs one great episode where he puts his life as a chef on the line and someone fearfully asks him what heâd do if he lost. He shrugs and says he could become a lawyer or a teacher or something. So while he loves cooking profoundly, he does not worship it and he knows that there are other relationships he could build up if he had to. He just âŠdoesnât want to, because cooking is his bff.Â
He loves to take on challenges to see how far he and cooking have come -
- and he takes challenges very seriously -
- but takes it even more seriously if he loses -
- and nonetheless knows that they are stronger for the challenges they have faced together.Â
So, yes, this is what it means to be in the green. Cherish your friendships, hang out together, be honest, funny, clever, curious and you.Â
Youâll be surprised at how much fun the two of you will have, now that all the pretensions and pressures are gone.Â
Just âŠhang out and have fun.
(and maybe watch Food Wars!, because damn, Souma is the MVP of my inspirational heroes)
Have a great day and Iâll see you in the next (and hopefully shorter) part 4 :)
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