Re: Thinking You're Good
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 4:46 am
Kirby wrote:To me, go is a game of respect. It is the "right" thing to do to respect your opponent, and to be humble. This might be a philosophy I have in life, too. It's good to pay others respect, and give them the benefit of the doubt, and to assume humility yourself.
When it comes to learning, I have thought in the past that, once people start to assume a confidence in their proficiency in a particular area, the rate at which they improve slows down. I think people have brought it up before, but an example is that people typically do not constantly improve their typing skill. They reach a certain degree of aptitude, and feel that they've reached proficiency. Then they stop speeding up.
So I have come to think that this is a good attitude to adopt in go, too. Why not keep telling myself that I am *not* proficient at something. Then, just maybe, I won't hit a limit due to the satisfaction I have with my current level. I'm running into two issues with this train of thought:
1.) Always thinking that I am not good seems to be harmful to confidence. If confidence is important to strength, how does one balance between being confident and keeping from reaching an acceptable level of proficiency?
2.) Though I want to feel that I am not good at the game, have I really convinced myself that I am not at an acceptable level of proficiency? Is it just a facade? I can tell myself with words, "yes, I suck", or "yeah, I'm not reading that well". But at what point have I really convinced myself that I need to achieve a higher level of proficiency?
What do you all feel about this topic?
There is an apparent paradox implicit here. One presumably wants to improve, but to do so, one must remain both confident and humble. Is this really a contradiction? I don't think so. Go strength is a continuum, and it is not unreasonable to be humble in regard to what you have achieved, and at the same time to be confident due to your sense of forward motion. Your experience and knowledge are continuing to grow. You have reason to believe that you can defeat your opponent. At the same time, your sense of respect should show you that a defeat is no reason for your confidence to diminish.
Perhaps also, the two virtues come to play at different times. Before a game, confidence is important; our chances seem to improve when we sense that we can find good moves. After a game however, humility becomes valuable - either to put a loss in perspective, or to prevent one's confidence from mutating into overconfidence.
