“Why should I believe in my own ideas?” This was one of the first questions I asked myself when I joined the REDI Lab in 2019. Five years later, I am still asking the same question every day. As a senior in college this year majoring in philosophy, I grapple daily with thinkers whose ideas have founded religions, started revolutions, and transformed societies. To have the time and space to study great works is a gift, but their greatness is often a confirmation that I am no Confucius, no Kant, no Kierkegaard. In the face of truly high-caliber ideas, I have often asked myself: do my ideas matter at all?
I was mulling over this question when I returned to the REDI Lab this past summer as an intern, hoping to give back to the program that had profoundly shaped my post-high-school thinking. Almost immediately, my teachers-turned-colleagues refamiliarized me with the mantra that stands at the base of the Lab’s philosophy: “At the REDI Lab, we believe that every person has an idea inside of them worth sharing with the world.”
How could they have such faith? I was dumbfounded. But as I watched Tom, Martha, Paul, and Amanda work, I saw students respond. A young woman who could barely vocalize her own name on the first day ended up giving a five-minute presentation about her love for Japanese culture on the last. A middle school boy who could not restrain himself from cracking jokes and blurting out during the first week of class found a way to channel his energy into a fundraiser for Denver’s unhoused population. Another young man taught himself stop-motion filmmaking in a week and produced a moving short film about processing the grief of losing a loved one. There were insights latent in every student; they just needed to be brought to light with the right kinds of questions. And this was the job, the conceit, and the success of my colleagues, who I continue to admire as they show young people what value they have in this ever-changing world.
Watching these moments happen, I realized something. One of those students used to be me. My own teachers must have seen in me what I saw in those students. So what had happened in the last five years that made me lose my belief?
At college, I have met people who are far smarter than me. I have read poems that I never could write and books I could barely comprehend. Many times, I have acknowledged that I was wrong. I have been comforted by good friends, fallen in and out of love, found myself broken and rebuilt myself from scrap. Throughout it all, my mind has been put through the intellectual and spiritual wringer, sometimes leaving me in a skeptical place of self-doubt. But when I watched those REDI Lab students take heart in their own ideas this summer, I remembered that even I too retained something unique and valuable, something worth sharing with the world. Where it stemmed from, I had no idea, but it was seemingly present all along. So as I go forth to write my senior thesis this spring—a golden chance to demonstrate my belief in my own ideas—I keep in mind the students I met this summer and the faith I glimpsed in their eyes.
Just as important as it is to take great ideas seriously, it is crucial that we also take seriously the cultivation of our own personal insights. For each of us is already a philosopher, we just haven’t asked ourselves the right questions yet. But that is our job as blossoming human beings—to ask ourselves the right questions and decide for ourselves. We cannot blindly consume what others give us and take it to be the truth. We must look long and hard at what lies deep on the floors of our souls and see how it matches up with what we are told. We must trust in this as our standard, our existence, our life, and the blessing by which our ideas shall bring value into the world. As a young person with a large portion of life yet ahead of me, I know that what I know is but a mote in the ocean of what I do not. But we young people are often not taught to understand this fact: that, in the face of all those bold thinkers who have come before us and all those who will come after, we have not only the right but the responsibility to trust ourselves, strive with passion, and bring our best ideas to fruition.
Avery (REDI Lab ‘19/CA ‘20) is a senior at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM.