The Way of The Student

David Oliver Doswell

The Way of The Student is finding oneself in one's work. I believe every person is unique, and thus every person has some uniquely valuable knowledge to contribute.

How that process evolves, shapes, and takes form, is different for everyone. The Way of The Student requires going on an individual quest to discover what is unique about yourself, and going deep into that specific part.

It begins with freeing yourself from your background, your parental upbringing and what you were taught, or encouraged, to like, and asking a simple question: what are you really interested in?

The objective is to find the intersection of what you like doing and what you're good at doing. For instance, being good at ice skating is not enough. Liking computer programming is also not enough. However, being good at drawing, and liking it, might be the thing you're uniquely qualified to contribute.

By "uniquely qualified," I mean, even among artists, you have an exceptional voice and style of drawing we cannot properly copy or purely experience without you.

This philosophy holds, the thing you like doing, and are good at doing, is where the path to your true self begins. Once you begin to walk the path, you will discover this is where you are most happy, most productive, and most interesting.

You'll explore various experiments and projects around your thing. As the quality of your work improves, at some point, you'll encounter a new feeling, a state of pure satisfaction, of competence, self-respect, and revelation.

I call this state Numinous.

Pleasurable levels of intensity exist for students to experience higher states of Numinous that directly follows the quality of their work. To experience more, do more.

The end of every great student is having achieved Numinous, whose quest has three tenets: knowledge, courage, and belief.

You need to know what you're doing, you need the courage to act on what you know, and the belief that you can do it. The Way of The Student, and by extension finding one's true self, may be achieved by following this simple philosophy.