People who can adjust their natural default-setting this way are often
described as being “well adjusted,” which I suggest to you is not an
accidental term.
Given the triumphal academic setting here, an obvious question is how
much of this work of adjusting our default-setting involves actual
knowledge or intellect. This question gets tricky. Probably the most
dangerous thing about college education, at least in my own case, is that it
enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract
arguments inside my head instead of simply paying attention to what's
going on right in front of me. Paying attention to what's going on inside
me. As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert
and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue
inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come