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How does that make you feel?

[ 7 minute read ]

Quick! Grab his avatar

Well, that's new! I am convinced that I did so well at school because I went to school with no emotion. I really couldn't care less if I was there or not; I really had no interest in any of the subjects; and I never took my emotions to school that were only relevant to being outside of school. That is not the new stuff.

I am interested in literary devices. To anyone who does not know what literary devices are I shall tell you this: Neither did I until this past couple of months. It seems that fiction writers use devices in their writing in an attempt to evoke some kind of emotion in the reader. The device that drives me wild with irritation is 'show and don't tell'. In other words, don't write  'It is hot outside' (weather); write instead about empty roads in sun-bleached villages where only a mad dog, too crazy to care, is barking in direct sunlight, while everyone else is snoozing in the shade to get some succour from the hazy, soporific and stupefying air.

The new bit is; I am just beginning to understand that The Open University does not want to educate me by just supplying information; it wants to permanently change me by causing me to let my emotions determine my actions (change the way I write). Apparently, I also have to be able to accept and offer subjective opinion both from, and to, other students, and on other selected writers, in future modules, AND interact with tutors, if I am to continue on my degree path. I fail to see what benefit any of this will have in my life. I have absolutely no intention of writing anything, like a novel, for anyone to read. 

Of course, I shall comply because I am interested in how emotion gets in the way of progress, and how modern schooling is so invested in personalising students. Many people will find my cold interest to be difficult to fathom; that I feel, is because modern schools do not teach students how to control their emotions, and if these people scratching their heads in confusion were recently 'educated' through modern attitudes to schooling, then I propose I have already made my case for why they do not follow my reasoning; they have not been taught to control their emotions and how to reason. At least, I have induced that to be true.

I have never made a secret of being troubled by having an IQ that is far higher than the average IQ. It is difficult to know what to do with it. One of the goals I have is to make sure I can elucidate what I want to say without also sewing in confusion. Apparently, this is far harder to do than I ever anticipated because I cannot circumvent other people's emotions. If I avoid sewing in my emotions, people seek to know what they are so they can understand my reasoning. Just like I need to 'show and not tell'. It is like learning a new language to speak to a different species on the planet. I see no progress being made if we all just run around telling everyone how we feel, or how others make us feel. Someone, somewhere, needs to invent the wheel or a steam engine. In short, we need people who can put aside their feelings and come up with a solution to problems; a solution that ameliorate negative feelings that arise from the problem; Don't we?

I am considering doing something that I have in the past been intensely rattled by when other people have done it; I am considering fabricating an avatar of myself. I am thinking that the chit-chat that degree level study with The Open University demands is interfering with my learning. Yesterday, I spent two hours writing an email just to explain why I was writing an email and why I wrote a previous email. Ridiculous! By writing the email I missed a tutorial. Ridiculous! But the person who needed my email would otherwise implement, who knows what, on my behalf. Anything anyone does on my behalf is never going to help me, which is why I am so adamant that people should talk to me and not about me. We have all heard of Chinese Whispers, haven't we?

Essentially, if a bunch of people talk about someone else, the bunch of people need to agree on a coherent shared view of the 'talked about' person. To do this they have to create an avatar of the 'talked about' person. Unfortunately, the 'talked about' person becomes a lesser being than the avatar, and, because they are not party to the fabrication of the avatar, they will always find that they are misunderstood when they attempt to make themselves clear; quite simply because they do not comply with the expectations others have, who were party to the fabrication of their avatar.

I think that I must create a public persona that is quite separate from my private persona, and consider that managing the public persona is just 'what I need to do'. Wait, What? That is what everyone does? They are deceptive, disloyal and untrustworthy? Good Crikeyness! I finally get it. If I want to feel safe in the modern world, I should pretend to be something I am not. But I already knew that. It is why, so many years ago, I decided to be honest. I think Jack Nicholson in the 1992 film, 'A few Good Men' had it right when his character, Colonel Jessup, shouted, 'You can't handle the truth!' to Lieutenant Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, in a courtroom. People just don't want to know, they just want to 'feel'.

Even though students are encouraged to make their subjective, highly personal, opinion clear in reviewing other students' efforts at writing; they are not actually allowed to tell the truth. If they don't like the written work they are reviewing, they must instead use reason to determine what words of encouragement they should use to say, 'Your work stinks!' I fail to understand the efficacy of waffling and prevaricating in telling the truth.

In the past, I have assured my tutors that positive reinforcement in feedback has no beneficial effect on me. However, I have been made aware that tutors feel a need to offer positive reinforcement to students. I am pretty sure that their modern schooling makes them feel like that, because it was, to my understanding, an environment wherein everyone held hands and sang 'Kum ba ya' or something to encourage togetherness or teamwork.

What The Open University is actually doing is encouraging teamwork among the students doing the same modules as I. The very idea that I need a team to do a degree, is to consider myself to be inadequate to the task if I work independently. I fail to see why any educational body would try to attack anyone's confidence. Yet, The Open University seems convinced that no single person can achieve anything of any consequence.

     'Hey everyone. Let's form an attitude of togetherness. It is not necessary to grow a thick skin to protect you from the truth, because none of us are ever going to tell you the truth. Instead, we shall all learn devices to encourage you to make the same mistakes.'

If there is any reality in my wild exclamation, and I am not going to strongly advocate for that, then why does The Open University find it difficult to accept that some of us want to learn literary devices in order to be able to NOT manipulate other people's emotions; evoke emotions that were not evident before? I have no wish to manipulate other people. Indeed, as far as I can tell, it is through people's emotions that they can be controlled.

     'Martin, you need to open up the gateway to your emotions.'

This is why I should create an avatar of myself. Let the world have access to the avatar and see if they can control something that is ultimately under my own control. Good luck with that! The difficult part is to be emotionally distinct from the avatar. I wouldn't want to have a conversation with it any time soon.

None of this is new to me. I knew, when I was eighteen, and decided that I would  no longer allow anyone to take photographs of me, that the 'future me' would feel this way. What is new to me is the realisation that everyone already has an avatar for work, and one for friends, and another for family, and never should their avatars meet. To tell the truth I did  know that. When I was about twenty, I recognised that one group of friends I had should never be aware of, and definitely not meet, another group of friends I had. I did act differently in different circumstances and environments. I pretended I was interested when I was not, but back then I was still shaping my 'private me' and I didn't want just any old crap to influence me. I did have a gatekeeper. 

Now, in the modern world, I recognise just how vital it is to have a gatekeeper and an avatar to attend to the gate. I suppose I have The Open University to thank for that.

The most important thing for me to remember is to never give any clues to what I really think or feel that may be added to a profile of me. 

Michael Ayers in his book on the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), includes a quote by Locke, 'The mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas, conveyed in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its operations, takes notice also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehension, and made use of for quick dispatch, are called so united in one subject, by one name; which by inadvertency we are apt afterward to talk of and consider as one simple idea, which indeed is a complication of many ideas together; because, as I have said, not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves, to suppose some substratum, wherein they do subsist, and from which they do result , which therefore we call substance.' (Ayers 1998).

Locke is talking of substance, ideas and things. Yet, it does not take too much for us to apply much of what he said to the amalgamation of some simple ideas about a person, which could stand as independent from one another, yet are combined to become a simple idea about the person. This could be the fabricated avatar that is created and shared among members of a group to which the original person has no access.

References

Ayers, M., 1998, 'Locke', 'Substance, Accident and Doubts about Essence', 1998, Pheonix (Orion Publishing), p29