What makes one person greater than another?

[Blazewind]

This has nothing to do with anything really, but I've been thinking about such things lately and decided to post this topic on here because it could certainly lead to some interesting and thought provoking discussion. 

It seems so often, that to so many people higher education is a great measure of one's worth.  People tend to assume that if one is highly educated they can be for far more help to you in even the mundane things in life.  Why do we tend to look to the PHD in the room, when we need info on say, the force of gravity on the planet Neptune.  Never mind that said PHD, might hold his degree in Sociology, a field very unrelated to the stars and planets - and the guy next to him is an amateur astronomer, who just happens to pump gas for a living.  Why are we shocked, as rule, that the lady up the road with ten cats and a job at the local fast food joint, is seen reading and clearly comprehending a book on advanced particle physics?  Furthermore, why be so surprised when a heart surgeon makes several spelling mistakes? 

It seems to me that people tend to equate high advanced education with high intelligence, and high intelligence with great use and value.  It also seems that we tend to equate low education with much less knowledge of anything at all, and that state as a bit less valuable.  The fact is though that a gas station attendant can understand science and math if he just happens to be good at it.  And a doctor cannot always spell or understand a wealth of complex words.  Perhaps all has more to do with natural talents for learning and retaining information, than anything else. 

To me education is more a sign of someone who was perhaps given greater encouraging and opportunity, than much else.  Of course this is not always true, but is it not a point to consider?

Your thoughts, anyone?               

[rain_88]

I don't understand the idea, how can one person be more valuable than the other. I don't see the point in doing such comparisons. Just because someone is more educated it doesn't mean that they are "advanced". I'm surrounded with these kind of people, and it can be schocking how petty- and narrow minded they can be. It makes feel sick when someone is drowning in its own intellect.

[AteBits]

I believe in this:
"There is no greater, there is no lesser
There is only balance" - Robert Monroe

[Lionheart]

 THEIR EGO!

[rain_88]

THEIR EGO!

LOL, that's a good one !

[Xanth]

Ego.   Lol
Definitely.   

[ange.connell]

Surely it depends on what you determine is great? Many things make people 'great' people. Sometimes the best educated people are the lesser people in regards to how they treat others. Some of the 'great' people can be uneducated but are 'nice' humans

[Volgerle]

The System.

[ForrestDean]

Yeah, I have to go with ego on this one as well.  The other day my wife was watching The Universe on SyFy, and Steven Hawking was explaining time travel, and I couldn't help but let my ego get the best of me and was thinking to myself, "now here's a guy who is supposed to be a guru of astro physics and I feel so much smarter than he does right now".  

LOL  

But seriously though there is no one greater or lesser than another.

[Dreamshards]

Some people can be more intelligent then others but that doesn't mean they have a bigger heart, or more happy for that matter.

[Blazewind]

Well said, everyone.  I agree with you completely.

In our society it seems it all about getting a good degree in something that's both considered smart and will pay well, and then going on to buy a house, etc.  We are not supposed to be happy being "less" then those educated people.  Maybe there should be a little more emphasis put onto being happy, being nice, being helpful, and so on. Also, while this is of course not true in every case, there is such a thing as being educated to the point of snobbery.  Bottom line, with it makes you happy, go for the big degrees and the titles, if it doesn't, don't, or so says me.

The thing that just gets on my nerves though is the way it tends to be assumed that lacking education means knowing less or knowing nothing at all.  I know plenty or people who are uneducated or under educated, and I count myself in that category.  We are certainly not stupid.  Some of the smartest people I've ever met personally barely finished high school, or didn't even quite make it.  I am left to wonder at times, is it really about education at all, or more about the opportunity to either earn the big money or to be thought of as smarter than others.            

[ChopstickFox]

I work in customer service and oh my goodness, the egos on some people just blow me away. "Do you think I'm STUPID?!?! I have four degrees! WHAT DO YOU HAVE?!?!" eeks. I work at a job with people I can have incredibly thought provoking conversations with that never even graduated high school. Way more than a lot of the people I encountered in college, anyways. One of them told me one time that they felt like the world looked at them differently because of it... and sadly it's true. I told him, "Dude, I have a college degree and I'm working in the same excrement hole as you." Haha, but that's more a jest at the current job market than the value of a person. It was degrading, some of the people that graduated with me... My mom always pushed for me to get an education and I am swimming in owed money because of it... It certainly doesn't make you a better or more intelligent person.

[AstralCody]

I got my GED and got out of high school as soon as I could. I couldn't learn to cope with how society was. I felt I didn't fit. I was often bullied, and tossed aside. Now I am trying to learn to cope in this society, and astral projection has done just that for me. I have always been very shy. Sometimes I have triggers... Sometimes I have leftover anger from people in the past that I shouldn't even still be thinking of because it was 7+ years ago. I still do though... It's something I really have to work on.

[Dreamshards]

That's funny because I hardly ever encounter people who think thy are better then me, at leat they don't show it, and I'm a pizza cook for crying out loud! I guess it all depends on where you live.

[Lionheart]

 I didn't get my GED. But I can definitely say that I have learned more useful information in the past 2 years in the Non Physical Reality, than I have learned from any school here.
In the Non Physical we are shown the way it really is, the truth. Here we are taught what "they" wish to teach us!

[rain_88]

IMO education is just a way to put blindfolds on you and turn you from a variable into a stationary in the equation. The more you get of it, the more brainwashed you become. The educators may be "benevolent" and want to make you think, but instead of that they just try to induce in you the same way of thinking that they have. It is controversial for me when educated people stress the fact that they THINK and how unbelievable that lesser aducated people can not, but often instead of thinking they are just repeating the same verses that were given to them.

And being broke and not having to care about material things takes off a lot of unnecessary pressure. I feel deliberated .)!

[Volgerle]

What I meant with "The System" is perfectly blending in with "Ego" because the system develops and fosters egoic drives. The ego has to pursuit targets set by the system. These targets are mostly career, money, degrees, etc. While pursuing vigourously the targets (set by the system/society) one forgets one'self' and one even forgets to 'live' in the moment - because all you (have been taught to) do is LOOK AHEAD to GET AHEAD.

Alan Watts expressed this perfectly many years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4

Many people are just career 'zombies' who are driven by fear of failure and/or by eagerness to fit into society's rigid norms instead of questioning these norms (or the entire society/system) in the first place.

[Bedeekin]

I work in the film business... I try not to but it just keeps asking... and this place is a breeding ground for ego. It's ego 101 through to an advanced level that most of you can't even comprehend. If there was a degree course on understanding and studying 'ego'... there would be a requisite for learning about the film industry.

It is filled with those who think that they are greater than the next... or are in fear of not being greater than the rest.

Out of all those who stand out and proclaim their greatness... no matter what... it's always the reliable, truly talented ones who don't like to mouth off about how great they are or how crap the others are that are the most successful.

Non-ego motivated people... even within a breeding ground of ego... are the ones who are greater and more successful - personally and work-wise.