Joe distinguishes between conviction — speaking with certainty while remaining open to being wrong — and identification, where the teacher believes their teaching is the only right way. The key test is defensiveness: a teacher who speaks with certainty but responds to “you’re full of shit” with “yeah, absolutely” is non-identified with the teaching. A teacher who becomes defensive is identified.
“Freedom doesn’t come from buying one set of thoughts. Freedom comes from not buying any thoughts.”
A functional teaching does not supply certainty. If a teacher is a “certainty supplier,” they’re creating another framework rather than helping people see through all frameworks. This is why selling certainty is easier than pointing toward uncertainty — most people are desperately looking for solid ground. But the Hindu tradition points out that one of the last things to dissolve on the path is the teacher and then the teaching itself. You must see through the scripture and through the teacher to reach freedom.
The same pattern shows up when content creators must continuously produce — the pressure to always have something new to say combined with audiences preferring certainty leads to teachers believing they know more than they do.
Related Concepts
- Wonder and stress cannot coexist
- Knowing is the opposite of wonder
- Good teachings inevitably get corrupted
- Internal authority mirrors external