Becoming Descartes with Richard Feynman; Story central to identity

Becoming Descartes with Richard Feynman

The world presents challenges that can only be solved when one knows how to think. My attempts at understanding it all began in sixth grade when I first read what is now my favorite book of all time, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. The funny and brilliant Feynman showed me an entirely new world, he showed me the wonders of science. Despite my fascination with Feynman's eccentricity and work as a physicist, what he really taught me was to think independently and to see the world in many different lenses. To see the world for what it really was and not just what I was taught when I was so young. Feynman taught me to think. After some time, my faith in what I learned when I was younger wavered. I was beginning to doubt all that I had learned up to that point. However, my days as a self proclaimed philosopher would be short lived. My thoughts vanished as quickly as they came.

It wasn't until my sophomore year in high school when I reread Feynman's book that the philosopher in me was reborn. As a child, my father warned me that whenever I read a book that I should not take it to heart because the mind of a child was the easiest to persuade. My father's caveat came rushing back to me as I was reading Feynman's book and it was then that I understood what I believe is how a child transitions into an adult. It is when the child begins to create his own outlook on life based on his own experiences and reasoning and not what others have inculcated upon his or her mind. In a fortunate stroke serendipity, it would seem that another one of Feynman's books can explain this transition in perhaps a vernacular that is palpable to most people. The book is called, What do you care what other people think.

Perhaps it was fate that the only truly mandatory class in the International Baccalaureate program is Theory of Knowledge, a class where to think about the origins of thought itself, and it is this class that pushed my goal to look upon life in my own eyes and to find what it truly meant to me to their limits. It quickly became my favorite class as it was very different from all my other classes; it required me think about topics that I hitherto thought was never an issue. Topics such as Plato's allegory of the cave, Kantian ethics, and the source of science's proclaimed truth forced me to truly think for myself for the first time. My view on life is constantly subject to change and perhaps this is mainly because my Theory of Knowledge teacher has taken upon himself the duty of swinging the pendulum of belief. Once I begin to subscribe to a philosophy, he identifies its faults and downfalls and consequently I am back sitting on the fence once again deciding my outlook on life. Perhaps one day I will finally make my ultimate decision.

My transition is somewhat different from the norm because it was not a transition to maturity through the context of my culture or family but through the realization of autonomy and the true reason why we humans are not animals: we utilize reason. Thus, in my humble opinion, I believe that what truly marked my transition into adulthood is when I began to form my own opinion about the world, when I began to think for my own. My transition into adulthood, I believe, is not an ephemeral experience in my life but something that is still in progress.

In the words of Descartes, cogito ergo sum.