Why do I believe that I won’t go into higher education?
Because I truly believe life is the best teacher for us. That everything we need to ever know is within us. I don’t think that’s renouncing technical expertise that we may need for our professions or hobbies, etc. It’s just saying those are a means to an end of (re)discovering who we truly are. And we understand who we truly are by connecting with the deepest version of ourselves.
Like what is higher education or a graduate degree anyways?
You earn a graduate degree when you take X amount of classes, do X amount of work, complete X amount of projects, write X amount of papers on a specific topic. Going a step further, you get a PhD, in a non-medical sense, when you complete X amount of classes, do X amount of research, publish X amount of papers / articles / studies on a specific topic.
Why pay all that money to do that when I can do that for free?
With the subject being me.
Let me get a Master’s in Sai. Let me get a PhD in Sai. Let me understand myself so well that I have no doubt who I am. Let me have conviction in my beliefs but also an open-mindedness enough to question those beliefs and assumptions when necessary.
You want research papers? These entries are filled with them waiting to be fully developed and published. There are many books waiting to be written using these entries as the foundation.
This degree integrates both the ‘real’ world and the abstract world simultaneously because I dissect myself. My external experiences and internal world are inextricably linked. So the case studies are endless.
Experiments don’t need to be replicated by others necessarily because to understand yourself, a sample size of n=1 is sufficient. Trials don’t need to be funded or go through an approval process to be put into action. The time from conclusion of experiment to implementation can be virtually immediate. It doesn’t need to be, but it’s flexible enough to be.
The coolest thing about getting a PhD on yourself is that the subjects can be vastly different. like right now I’m discussing my career. The next moment I could be discussing my relationships. After that could be my spirituality.
We’re usually limited by the typical Master’s or Doctorate degree by the subject.
But the versatility in studying ourselves is infinite.
Now here’s something that will sound like it contradicts everything that I’ve said so far. I’m actually not ruling it out because there could be a time in my life where it makes sense. I just don’t foresee that time being any time soon though.
The other aspect to this is it doesn’t serve as well who I want to be in the next few years. I’ve discovered myself with experience and unpacking those experiences. To be the best version of myself, I think I have to continue with this content creation through ideas, building a business, being part of a growing organization.
Another reason why is I don’t have the most favorable outlook on today’s education system. “The end of education is character.” If I’m building character with what I’m doing currently, then why infringe on that?
It made sense to get a Master’s in something when the knowledge and wisdom was centralized within these institutions. But that’s becoming less and less the case now. I can learn what I need to know about a subject through books, courses, podcasts, articles, talking to professors even outside of a class setting, etc. With information decentralization, education can be individualized.
There’s also a systems effect here. By spending my time and energy across various subjects, I can pull in concepts from different topics to create a new idea. So my creativity also increases.
There’s another aspect to this of the education system as a whole. And that’s of the destination framework. Played out in story form as well. Timelines.
Underlying that is the beginning and ending framework actually.
In this context, it’s the notion that we have a beginning to our Master’s or PhD program and an end to it. However, aren’t we always learning? Isn’t there the potential education opportunity in everything in life? I’d argue that one of the biggest reasons why the education system exists is to instill values of curiosity, inquiry, experimentation, deep though, skepticism, and character, among others. That’s just the means that society has created to get us there.
If that is already a part of my identity, then isn’t it my duty to then use that imbibed mindset to benefit myself and others? This this mindset is exactly that: a mindset. Not a destination to be only validated by a diploma or a few letters before / after your name. If doing those actions didn’t change your fundamental self, your beliefs, your mindset, then what was the point of doing all those actions?
Those may naturally come along the way and they shouldn’t automatically be repudiated. Just questioned when people do it for why they’re doing it. And after / throughout the degree, has their mindset / identity shifted in a way that serves them and those around them beneficially?
I believe this is my last belief that I had originally written down (back on 2/16/22). So after almost 3 months, I’ve answered one question (of course many sub-questions). The irony here is isn’t that what a Master’s or PhD program looks like? Spending, weeks, months, semesters at a time just drilling into 1 specific question and looking at many angles? ~3 months, right around the time of a semester.
Let’s see what the next few questions have in store as I continue to get my PhD on myself.
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