Metacognition: Blogging

It’s been quite a year. This is one of my last blog posts, I believe, and I’m not sure what to think.

The natural response is that through blogging I have become better able to understand myself. That’s a lie though. I suppose logically, it makes sense. When one is spewing ideas through writing, it should be easier to see aspects of one’s self.

For whatever reason, however, this is not how it worked out for me. Everything I typed I already consciously knew about myself, whether or not the corresponding thoughts existed years before I wrote the blog post, or days, before I actually wrote anything I already had the thoughts formulated in my head.

While I didn’t learn anything from the actual blog posts themselves, I’d argue that I learned from the blogging experience as a whole, and the actual process of blogging. Most obviously, I learned a lot about other people by reading their blogs. But, past that, I learned something that I’m having trouble articulating, in regards to the freedom of blogging.

Aside from very general guidelines, the blogs allowed us to rant regarding pretty much whatever was on our minds. The process of blogging helped me greatly in articulating ideas, bringing them from my brain to the web. Blogging also had a different level of “seriousness”, and I approached them differently than I did other assignments.

All of these things, factors of the act of blogging rather than the content of my blogs, allowed me to draw away skills and experience in working on things that are perhaps more casual, but just as important.

Metacognition: WHAP test

AP test. Countless people will talk about how stressed they were, how much they prepared and pulled long nights studying.

That’s not for me. I would never be able to make myself do that. Heck, I never even got one of those preparation books. And thus, the AP test was not stressful for me.

Now, I actually think this makes a lot of sense and isn’t actually just because I’m lazy.

For starters, let’s talk about the subject matter. It’s world history. How does one study for a three hour test on such a bloated subject? I didn’t. It’s simply impossible. I could imagine a person studying for hours on large topics such as the Crusades, the Renaissance or World War II. I don’t recall a single question regarding any of those on the test, and I remember noting this to myself. The probability that you could actually study adequately something that would actually be on the test is miniscule. So miniscule, in fact, that any benefit of not studying would easily outweigh the meager hope of useful studying.

And this is where stress comes in. In the last few days before the exam, I played computer games, went to sleep early and hung out with friends in AP Euro who had already taken their AP exam while an unfortunate amount of my fellow academites were stressing themselves out.

I sincerely believe my better mood and abundance of sleep in the days prior to the test was much more beneficial than anything I could have hoped to have gained by studying and cramming.

The only question is: how to convince oneself to not worry about it? I don’t know, I guess I was lucky; I imagine that it would be rather hard to change one’s mind regarding how much they care.

Best of Week: Michael K as god

An interesting idea brought up by Margot last week. What evidence in the text supports this? For one thing, Michael K’s escape from the camp is said to be a miracle. Also, when prompted, Michael K says “I am what I am”, which is used in the Bible at some point, I think. And thus Michael K is also godly for his ability to break free of the system.

I’m pretty sure this is ridiculous.

First of all, there is no guarantee that such a commonly used expression is intended to indicate anything other than surprise that Michael K did something that the speaker thought he could not. This is not godly in the least, and I don’t believe Coetzee intended it to be. Countless times every week I use and hear people use the word miracle without any association to god, nor do I ever think of god, religion or the Bible when it is used. But, there can only be so many coincidences, and given the context, as well as some other references, I guess it might be plausible.

Now, “I am what I am”, is definitely the stronger example. At very least, there is some sort of philosophical thought going into this, and it’s clearly intentional. And while it may be true similar lines have been used in holy texts, I don’t think the line itself means anything.

I’m not someone who’s extremely familiar with the Bible, but I believe the meaning in the line as seen in holy texts is that god is too extraordinary for humans to understand. Well that’s the essence of god, god is not understandable, god is the explanation for the things we don’t understand.

But all of this ignores that which makes god god. It’s not a question of how much people understand god, it’s a question of whether god understands us. Humans do not understand each other, maybe not even themselves. Who are they? They don’t know. If two people truly knew each other, they would not be individuals, they would have recognized every emotion the other felt, every event they ever experienced, everything they ever knew. Their identities would merge, they would be one and the same. It isn’t possible.

Unless you are god. God is that universal identity, god does understand. God is not out of the system, god is so engrained into the system we cannot imagine it. God is everything, god is the system. Much like how in the Matrix, it is revealed that Neo, the One, was solely a product of the system, created to balance a system that otherwise would fall apart.

Michael K, for one thing, said “I am what I am” probably because he himself doesn’t know how to answer, or who he actually is. It’s not that he isn’t going to bother trying to explain to a mortal (or in this case someone who is inside the system?), it’s just that he himself has no idea.

And, of course, Michael K does not understand others. He might not even care. And while it’s true Neo did not understand others, this is irrelevant for two reasons. First, so what? Sure Neo isn’t god, but clearly neither is Michael. Second, Neo’s identity, or the identity of the one is the product of the remainder based on the Matrix, which is in effect, the identity of all of humanity. Michael K is nowhere near this at all.

So yeah, at least the way I see it, Michael K failed the god test.