A Thank You That's Better Than Chocolate

Hi Joan,

I wanted to tell you about what I learned from our sessions. I learned about the things related to my thesis, metacognition, and that I had another type of intelligence other than my spatial and logical thinking. My thesis helped me look at societal, emotional, and personal problems in a whole new light.

My new way of thinking about someone else is to consider what has happened in their life and how has that culminated into the person they are today. I figured out that every person is logical in their own mind, but everyone has different assumptions, so they may end up having different conclusions based on the same information. As soon as I realized that, I was able to be more understanding of all sides of an argument, which helps me be more respectful towards a view that I may not agree with.

The metacognition is related to that, but I’m thinking of it in more of a micro-environment. Such as in an argument, if I know the person well enough, I can see why they have their view and what the root of their anger is. Then I can go from there. Also, in video games there is a clear goal and at the same time that I’m working towards the goal, I know that the enemies are working towards the same goal. So I can try to predict what they’re going to do based on their best approach to the goal is.

Now that I’ve started using these mental tools, I’ve started to see that nobody else I talk to can see that other people are being logical. They see someone with a different view on something and they’re completely bewildered that anyone could think that way. They then proceed to avoid that person if they’re sufficiently loyal to that view. This is obviously unproductive and it’s the problem with political debates nowadays. Now that I have found this type of intelligence in myself I feel I can analyze these types of problems more clearly.

Anyway, those are the main things you’ve helped me develop. I’ve also thought about going into philosophy or something, but I’ve decided I don’t really want to make it my job, just to use it as a tool, as I’ve been doing. That said, I might want to take some classes on it to help refine my thinking. I really do want to make games to make people happy, as video games have done for me. They have made some of my best memories.

Thank you for all our conversations, I enjoyed them very much. Thanks for all those times you validated my thoughts because before that I didn’t see my thoughts as correct, and didn’t see how other people could be so confident in their thoughts when they had very similar experiences as I did. I think I will keep what we talked about with me for the rest of my life. 

I just arrived at college and I’m super excited for it. I’m genuinely excited to take some cool classes, and for the free time I’ll have. I was assigned to Intro to Philosophy which is cool. I read the course description and he’s posing the most stereotypical philosophy questions like “What is free will?” But I can get over it I suppose. I think I’m gonna join the running club, an a capella group (they have like seven), and some sort of video game club. They all seem fun at a glance.

Best,

C