Journal #10: after reading Chapter Ten

"The examination is going well. As I gradually realize it, I seem to grow in stature. He is asking me now on what subject I wrote my degree thesis. I have to make a violent effort to recall that sequence of memories, so deeply buried away: it is as if I was trying to remember the events of a previous incarnation."

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As I read this, I tried to connect it to the many times that I felt my knowledge being tested. In a way, I think all humans feel their worth and gain self-esteem through the words of other humans. Despite God always telling us that each one of us is unique, and that we should love ourselves for who we are, for most people, our confidence depends on how others judge us. In the book, before going to the chemical examination, Levi continuously describes how he felt like he was a not good enough human being by how the Nazis treated him. However, when he goes into the examination, and the examinor questions and talks to him like a fellow human being, he regains his sense of pride and proudness. Before, on his own, he could have never achieved this. This still applies to modern day life. Humans like to hear compliments about themselves, and the more they hear it from the people around them, the more they gain self-esteem, and "grow in stature," as Primo Levi puts it. Maybe the reason why concentration camps were so unbearable for the Jews was because they were deprived of their self-worth. Even now, there are people who get bullied and they are miserable, because they never hear anything good about themselves, and this leads them into the mind set of thinking that they truely are useless.

Words of others has an astounding impact on the way we look at ourselves. It seems like we have turned ourselves into the kind of people who depend and live on the thoughts of others, and without them, we cannot survive.