Bereishit

The title of the blog may seem... odd. Incognito is assuming or living an alternative identity - essentially acting as not yourself - but what is 'in-space-cognito?' Well, as ashamed as it makes me, I must confess it's a pun. (Feel free to groan at your leisure.) Though, not a pointless pun I hope. If I make you suffer through a punster's humor, there better be a good reason for your pain.

The idea is simple; people learn to hide their learning. Children and adults - the latter often being more guilty - disguise their ability to learn and discover new things for fear of criticism. Why? Because learning is married to mistakes. Learning requires trying, guessing, and failing, and failure is too often condemned as shameful and unacceptable. Take, for example, a student studying spanish. If the student completes every homework assignment and aces every test neither attending class nor reading the text book, they haven't learned a thing. They've merely demonstrated their mastery over the course. Only by juxtaposing success and failure does knowledge grow.

So, why the name? Well, as I stated above, 'incognito' is hiding in a facade. I truly believe - and have witnessed many examples - that individuals' inability to learn any given subject is derived primarily from fear of failure. May certain subjects be more challenging for certain people? Absolutely. However, with enough patience and motivation, anyone can learn anything. So, I split 'incognito' to 'in cognito' because of the latin roots.

Incognito comes from the latin word cognitus and the prefix in. In means without, as in incoherent and inconsistent. Cognitus is a derivation cognition, which has the same meaning in English as it did in latin. So, by splitting apart the facade prevents us from learning, incogito, we end up in thought, or in cognito.