There is a cognitive bias, I will call the gym effect. At the gym, if I catch my reflection in the mirror, I see and old, weak-looking guy with five pounds extra body fat. At home, in the mirror, on the other hand,I see a relatively young looking guy, with a decent physique for his age and not very much overweight.
The gym is where the students work out, so I am going to be 45 years older than the average person there. The more out of shape students do not work out as much, so the typical person is a student with zero body fat. The substantial muscles on some are due to the fact that... it is the weight room.
It is the same if I think about the fact that my 35 minute 5 kilometers is very slow. Yet some people cannot run that distance (or do not choose to run at all).
My brother in law is in palliative care. He called me the other and the conversation turned sentimental; he was talking about how brilliant everyone in my family is (he is married to my sister, also in palliative care) and that he felt inferior. But in my family it is normal to have a PhD. My dad, my brother and I, two uncles on my mom's side. For him, it is like being at the gym, intellectually speaking (and he is a very smart guy, just modest and very generous).
I guess the point, in abstract terms, is that there are always multiple sets in which a potential comparison might take place.
2 comments:
At home, the lighting and my relaxed and focused face make me look entirely different than I do outside or in industrial-type lighting.
A former student says the reason I am different from other faculty is that I am "unapologetically brilliant" - by which he says he means I know a lot, ask for a lot, and can see the insight hidden in rough student work.
But I stopped really working for almost 30 years. So there are an article and a book I am failing to fully read, I don't have the background I need. I was in school with these authors. I think: imagine if I could have kept working, all I would know by now.
You are that, unapologetically brilliant. I love that phrase!
Post a Comment