This fragment of a thought is triggered by reading chapter 8 of The Pathless Path.
All of this discussion assumes that prestige is a Good Thing to pursue and value. That is a reasonable starting assumption: the feeling of having prestige gives (you hope) a feeling of well-being, satisfaction. Happiness. (Just writing those words flags how squishy they are, capable of almost infinite meaning from one person to the next. Take care that the words are not squishy and variable in your own head, dear Author. Otherwise you will be on an aimless path, not a pathless path.)
Paul Millerd’s starting definition seems to be:
Kevin Simler defines prestige as “the kind of status we get from doing impressive things or having impressive traits or skills.”
The Pathless Path, p. 119.
Prestige is status, the judgment of others. In this definition, Others decide that what we do or are is impressive, and think approvingly of us — because of what we do or are.
One way we get the approval of others is through credentials. You went to the right school, you work at the right company. Prestige is a signaling game, and the signal is indirectly transferred prestige. Harvard has prestige. You attended Harvard. Therefore you have prestige.
If you are alive, this is dust in your mouth. You, in your soul, know that you are the same person with and without the Harvard degree. To seek and get the approval of others for something that is not the essential you is a hollow, soul-corrupting achievement.
Meaning . . . Self, come into my office take a memo to self. Self, do not chase external markers of success. Credentials. Signals.
Not even as a marketing tool. Credentials are justified as a way to pad the resume with signals to future employers. Don’t chase external markers or signals even for such utilitarian reasons. You’re lying to yourself.
Chase a different type of prestige—a different approval of others. Chase the approval of having one other person say to you, unbidden, “Thank you. That helped.” In other words, seek the approval of unbidden gratitude.
To be precise: you will not be happy inside if you are counting on people gushing with gratitude. But if you help others in ways that are useful and valuable to them, the act of being useful to another human being will have in it the seeds of happiness and deep self-acceptance for you.
On page 123 of The Pathless Path, Paul Millerd starts to discuss discovering a different type of path: “recognition from other people who are passionate about ideas.”
That’s where I am in the book right now so I will stop this little essay right here.
Except.
I immediately connect his statement (“. . . passionate about ideas”) with the Dan Sullivan update to Marcus Aurelius’s ideas.
Dan talks about four types of people and their mentality or thought processes. They stair-step up from least enlightened to most capable of enlightenment. Or at least the possibility of enlightenment.
- People who think about things. My yacht. My car. My watch. Etc.
- People who think about people. Endless yabbering about Donald Trump or Joe Biden or Kim Kardashian etc.
- People who think about ideas. The endless yabbering about political ideas is an example. Marxism vs democracy, etc. Professors and pundits play with the ideas for their own sake, not with the desire to grow and evolve themselves.
- People who think about their thinking. In all of their affairs, these people examine their own thought patterns, whether it be about a car, a person, or an idea. Because only by changing your thinking can you change your life. Getting a new car won’t change your life. Ranting about Donald Trump won’t change your life. Understanding and defending an idea or theory or philosophy won’t change your life. Changing your thinking will change your life.
Just to make it easy, here is the passage from Meditations that is the precursor to Dan Sullivan’s repackaging of the concept:
Things ordinary people are impressed by fall into the categories of things that are held together by simple physics (like stones or wood), or by natural growth (figs, vines, olives …). Those admired by more advanced minds are held together by a living soul (flocks of sheep, herds of cows). Still more sophisticated people admire what is guided by a rational mind—not the universal mind, but one admired for its technical knowledge, or for some other skill—or just because it happens to own a lot of slaves.
But those who revere that other mind—the one we all share, as humans and as citizens—aren’t interested in other things. Their focus is on the state of their own minds—to avoid all selfishness and illogic, and to work with others to achieve that goal.
Meditations, 6.14.
Marcus Aurelius thus divides the minds of men into:
- physics,
- souls,
- rational mind, and
- universal mind.
Dan’s remix is more accessible and understandable to me. That makes sense given the year that I live in.
Back to The Pathless Path. Let’s wrap this up.
I don’t know where Paul Millerd is going with his discussion of prestige, of external approval.
But for me, happiness is in the St. Francis Prayer. It’s in the feeling I get when I do something useful for someone else. I know it’s good. I know it’s useful. It’s nice — but not essential — to get positive feedback from others.
A simple example. A well-done slide deck makes me happy. I know that I have really explained something as well as I can within the constraints of time and the physical aspects of the medium.
Today is a good day.