Life Long Learning

The New Thing

Going back to school … as a senior in society … is an amusing experience … at first.  It feels a little like the stars in the milky way … that have been broken … and are reconstituting themselves … to emerge at Orion.  Its a wonder therefore … that the milky way … is so humongously big. It reflects a little … life   here on earth. It feels like all our life … we have been rehearsing for the real thing. And the real thing does come … many … many … years … after school is over.

 

In the self learning process … the student is also the teacher … and that presents some curious effects … about knowing and not knowing. An adult who hasn't been on the basketball court … in a long time … knows how basketball is played. But when was the last time … he actually did it? Berkeley said … ' Knowledge is having it to apply it.' And that ought to … inform us … whether we ought to go pick the horses at the races … on a particular day … or sit at a cafe and have a cup of coffee. But we are certainly not indifferent between the two.

 

And in returning to the attitude of learning … we find something confronting us … as if to say we are doing something totally redundant. On closer inspection … we find that … its not thwarting our efforts at learning … but is instead responding with the usual habituation … it first experienced when learning as a kid. We have to match the conditions of the schooling process … the school badge … the box of mathematical instruments … color pencils … and an exercise book for notes.

 

Its funny when I think of it … but I did all that … simply to gain the attention of the eros impulses … that I'm starting a process of re-learning. And then it yielded … and granted me access to that special quality of enthusiasm … that is vital for the learning process. Its a combination of discovery … advancement … knowing … being a part of the world … and most importantly … what everyone considers is knowledge.

 

I had a ball of a time … defining and drawing my badge of learning … took a photo of it … and had it on display … on my cell phone. It was a different badge from the one at my previous school. This had among other objects … something depicting incomplete knowledge … a globe … a sword with two sharp edges … and a part of a puzzle.  It alerted the child in me … and transformed his usual manner of being playful … to one who had a purpose to being playful.

 

And with that … I brought my mind to take a look again at the process of study. It brought a curious sensation of contact with the minds of the early alchemists … astronomers … shamans … men of science … medicine … and social behavior. It was positively lively … like an explorer on the river Zambezi … looking for its source. It was truly self learning … without tears … and the volitional development of the intellect … that simply wanted to know.

 

Organizing for learning … its perhaps the most important thing … a senior can do … in re-commencing the learning process. It sharpens the focus of the eye when we are out in town … a spelling mistake on a sign board … a comment by the prime minister on TV that seems to indicate frustration … the way that the cashier at the restaurant smiled in re-collection of romance … and an advice to a mother about her daughter who can't concentrate … to interest the child in astronomy.

 

And once the gate to the social university is opened …  we come to perceive accurately … what is knowledge … compared to what we get by with. It makes for a stiff collar on occasion … when we appear a little fussy about precision … but a bout with the social natures … helps to heal that. Ordering black coffee and getting milk coffee … listening to a neighbor complain about the economy and looking it up on the internet … that the year's growth is right on target … listening to a teen complain about seeing a homeless person on the street … and realizing that there are millions more with homes … all these creates a refinement on the passions … with regards to what is knowing.

 

Perhaps of special interest … in the re-learning process … is the feeling that its not as difficult as we had imagined before. In fact … it suggest itself to be completely easy. And there is the dawn of our realization … about how we grew up simply happy … uncomplicated … and unharassed about knowing and not knowing. It regains the average … the standard that we applied ourselves to … as being … not too bright nor too dumb. And we wonder about what possessed us to change all that.

 

It raises the groom of our social skills … that part of us which took an interest in social matters … and experienced great delight at social expressions … trends … new ideas … and the changing lifestyles. And very quickly from there … we find we belong … and we are able to affirm that sense of it in us … because we know what it means.  And it affirms the mind … as the sole organ in the body … responsible for knowing … and understanding its effects.

 

I keep a ruler … below my computer screen … simply as an expression that everything I come across … on the screen is quantifiable … and lends itself to be a part of something else. Its diminished my wonder of enthusiasm … from first coming to handle the windows program. As they say … a computer doesn't think for you … but puts out what we put in. That is certainly in many ways like the mind of the man.

 

I found a curious effect to the learning process … that came much later. I found that I can imitate quite closely … the voices of people … I've met … or watched on the screen. I thought it funny at first and of no special consequence. And then I realized … it was the mind's way of relating to the humanity experience … picked up by the precision of the mind for nuances … and speech styles. And suddenly I found a relation to mankind like I've never encountered before. But its got me at the edge of the chair … and I've to look at it more.