Higher Learning

“Knowledge without wisdom is like man without a faith - a self-propelled disaster waiting to happen.”     Lisa M H 

Yes, that’s me - the self-propelled disaster area, not waiting to happen, but in a constant state of happening.

Which idiot is it who said that “knowledge is power”?  Had they never heard that “ignorance is bliss”?  Do they not know that the ‘wrong’ knowledge in the ‘wrong’ hands (or minds, to be literally precise) can be a total liability, causing great harm?  And not just to other people - there’s the stress you can inflict upon yourself just from having an insatiable need to know, without being discriminating about what knowledge you seek, and why you pursue it.

Perhaps the originator of the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” knew this, and was being intentionally vague because he thought it might scare the arse off of people if he actually reported that “curiosity killed my Uncle Horace, who read one too many medical articles about how stress could contribute to a heart condition, and promptly died from a heart attack brought on by the stress he experienced as a result of continually reading such depressing news.”  Plus, it’s not quite as catchy as the cat version.

Which brings me, inevitably, back to me - the self-exploding, knowledge-seeking missile; who, had I been a cat, would have lost all nine lives within minutes of learning how to walk.

I like to think of myself as a seeker of knowledge and truth: which makes it sound terribly noble and worthy, as if I’m on some kind of crusade, searching for a latter-day version of the Holy Grail - information.  I should be wearing armour, a cape, and bearing arms.  I think a horse might be a bit too much, though: I hardly have enough room for a cat. 

The problem is that I’m not very discerning about the knowledge I seek, or what its impact on me might be.  I am a human hoover - I mainly suck up crap.  And why should I be surprised by this when I am a hoarder by nature?  

Random ideas pop into my head, about which I am absolutely convinced I need to know more (preferably right now, or I will expire on the spot): and off I go, back onto the internet - the Font of all Knowledge (dubious as it frequently is).  My true quest, it seems, is to find a legitimate reason for being on the web.  Again. *Sigh*  God, at this rate I’ll soon be overtaking the amount of time the Crusaders spent battling in the Holy Land.  Can’t I find another quest?

So, my latest ‘quest’ (which basically means I got distracted by a thought, and have since been in obsessive pursuit) has been for self-education.  Again.  I say “again” because I have a series of interchangeable ‘interests’ , with which I become engrossed (to put it mildly - I think the more appropriate terminology is obsessed, or hyper-focused), and repeatedly return to, ad infinitum.  My forays into the realm of academia have become a regular highlight, especially since I discovered the world of free, on-line learning resources.  

“Oh joy!  Finally, a valid reason for going on the internet.”  Er, not.  “But why?  WHY?!!!!!  Why can’t I, when everybody else can?!  It’s not fair!!!!  I LOOOOOOOOOVE learning!  And EVERYBODY says learning is a good thing - a means to self-improvement.  It makes you a more interesting, well-rounded person.  And it’s good for your brain - stops it from atrophying, and improves your memory.  I’ll miss out on all of those benefits.  It has to be good for me!”

This is what the knowledge I’ve acquired from other people tells me: people I know nothing about, other than what they choose to share on their sites - and even then I cannot get a read on them, or determine whether I’m meant to take what they say literally, due to the minor issue of my being autistic (impaired social understanding, anyone?).  Which brings us to the fact that most of these people writing this stuff aren’t autistic, so they’re not writing it for me: I just think they are.

But the wisdom of my repeated experience (repeated ad nauseam because I repeatedly ignore it) tells me that I don’t do well with academic learning; that I’ve already found my calling, which is for writing and art, for which I already have everything I need within me - I don’t need to keep looking for “what I want to be when I grow up” (I’m nearly fifty, for God’s sake: I could drop down dead tomorrow, and then it’d be a bit late for that!), or just looking for more. 

And then there’s the fact that it’s passive - I don’t actually do anything, neither whilst learning, nor with the knowledge I acquire, other than let it wash over me, and hopefully retain some of it (or not, since most of it goes over the top of my head anyway, for one reason or another - distraction and boredom being the two main culprits).  It just becomes another obsession with which to bore myself, and any other poor sod who’s unlucky enough to gravitate within my orbit at the time, until it fizzles out and I move on to the next thing that grabs my attention.  “Oh joy.”  *Sigh* 

But the real irony is that, despite apparently being extremely intelligent, I struggled with learning at school (other than English, for which I have a natural affinity), mostly due to a mixture of anxiety, easy distractibility and loss of interest, and just plain confusion about the subjects I was learning: they didn’t fit within the context of my life, other than as an abstract means to an end - that of passing exams in order to secure either a ticket into higher education, or a good job.  

And I don’t do abstract.  Nor do I do the formal model of education, or learning, but still I ignore my inner wisdom and keep on trying to fit myself into a round hole when I’m most definitely an alternatively-shaped peg.

So I guess it’s not what you know, but what you do with what you know.  Or what you don’t do with what you know.  Or even what you do with what you don’t know.  Or what you do when you don’t know.  The possibilities, it seems, are endless… like this paragraph.

And I guess that’s why we refer to the wisdom of Solomon, not the knowledge.

Knowledge you learn, wisdom you earn.

Deconstructing God

“Now the supreme irony here is that you have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience.  

In fact, you place so little value on experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be just the other way around.”     From ‘Conversations With God’, by Neale Donald Walsch

Who is God?  What is God?  Where is God?  What do you think God looks like?  Does your God have another name, or names, by which you call Him/Her/It?  Do you call God “Lord” or “Father”?  If you do believe in God, or a God, whose God is it in which you believe?  And what do you mean when you say that you believe?  What is it that you believe about God?  

Do you believe that God is a person, who looks rather like Santa Claus, and lives up in the heavens, looking down on us all, out of reach, out of touch, and only to be contacted in emergencies, or at specific times (i.e. does He/She keep certain ‘office’ hours - no praying except on Sundays, at Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc, dependent on the dictates of whichever religion to which you belong), and in specific places (are churches and other religious buildings God’s offices)? 

Or, if you do pray any other time, do you not expect a direct ‘answer’, because you believe that you’ll have to wait in line while S/He gets to your request, and until the next available interpreter has time to speak to you on His behalf (your local priest, vicar, the pope, etc - ‘cos, let’s face it, you know God’s not going to talk to you directly because you’re too far down the ladder of sin for Her/Him to bother with, or to expect to be able to understand what S/He’s trying to communicate to you)?

Or do you have a more abstract concept, that God is energy, and, as such, is contained within everything, and around everything - is everything, and nothing; the beginning, middle, end, and everything in between?  And, if so, how’s that working out for you when it comes to the question of praying to, or communicating with, It/Him/Her?

And what does the word pray mean to you?  How do you do it, if, indeed, you do?  Do you pray out loud, or in an awe-struck whisper, ‘cos you don’t want to disturb or upset Him/Her?  Do you include a lot of grovelling and pleading, apologies and thanks for Her/Him having taken the time out of His busy schedule to notice you for the scant amount few minutes that you’ve dared to attempt to communicate with Her - a schedule which includes running the world and doing much more important things than bothering with you (not that you aren’t part of the world, of course, but we neglect to recognise that fact)?  

Do you recite set prayers that you’ve learnt because you think that’s the ‘proper’ way to talk to God, and S/He’ll not respond otherwise?  Do you get down on your knees, even if your knees are knackered and it causes you pain?  Do you put your hands together in a prayer position, and bow your head, and close your eyes?  Or, if you believe in the universal energy concept, do you focus on the breath, imagining it as God’s energy entering into you?

Do you believe that God is punishing?  Why?

Do you believe that God is male?  Why?

Do you believe that Jesus is God?  Why?

Do you think that you have to join, or ally yourself with, a religious or spiritual group, thereby identifying yourself with a label (be it Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Mormon, Spiritualist, Pagan, etc) in order for your faith to be considered real?  Why?

Do you think you have to be good, prove yourself worthy enough, before you can have a relationship with God, or ask for help?  Why?

Do you believe that God ‘wrote’, or dictated to His/Her special people, the words in the Bible, the Torah, the Qur’an, the Vedas, etc, and that what’s in there is therefore The Truth - definitive, literal, unimpeachable, undeniable, irrevocable, immutable?  Why?

Do you believe that people who have studied the Bible, or other religious/spiritual texts, understand God better than you, and are therefore closer to Her/Him?  Why? 

Do you believe there can only be one ‘right’ way to believe?  Why?

Do you believe that there are only a chosen few, to whom God imparts spiritual knowledge and wisdom, in order that they might lead the rest?  Why?

Do you think that God chooses sides?  Why?

Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions?  If you believe any of this stuff, and do any of this stuff, have you asked yourself why?  And, if not, why not?  Do you believe that you are not allowed to question God, or the idea of God, but simply obey?  Why?  Who is it you are obeying?  God?  Or another person, who is speaking on behalf of God, and perhaps tells you that God will be angry if you don’t do as you’re told?  Why?   

For myself, most of my beliefs about God came from the mainly unconscious absorption of other peoples’ ideas, which were mostly christian in nature, and negative (so I associated God with my dad, most likely as the result of having taken very literally the christian reference to God as “Our Father”: and believed for a long time that they were somehow in cahoots, and that if I did anything remotely ‘wrong’ (like utter a swearword, even a mild one like “bloody”) then my dad would somehow find out from God, and I’d be in trouble.  

So I spent a great deal of time apologising to this God, whom I didn't understand, for every misdemeanour, no matter how minor.  And in my confused mind they became irrevocably linked, which meant that everything my dad was, God was - moody, hypercritical, demanding, inconsistent, gloomy, etc).

I have no conscious memory of how, or from where, I picked up these ideas (much like most of what I absorb); I wasn’t raised in a religious household, and my sole exposure to religion came from school.  And yet the only thing I can really remember about them is the dreaded, once a month hymn practice each class had to endure in infant and junior school - having to sit still on a hardwood floor for an extended length of time (which seemed like an eternity to a restless child with the extra burden of unrecognised ADHD), and practice singing the same hymns repeatedly until we got them ‘right’.  Is it any wonder I equated God with punishment?  That’s how it felt, having to endure this torment.  

And, seemingly, the world around me is in agreement, because there is so much evidence put forth to support the negative view of God and faith.  I wonder why that is?  Why do I, we, find it so much easier to see what’s bad in the world?  Whatever the reason, the change began for me when I learnt that God/faith and religion are two separate things.  God did not make religion, man did.  And all the crap associated with it is man-made.  What an astoundingly simple idea, and yet it has produced such miraculous results.  God is not my Father after all.  What a relief! 

The Meaning Of Life

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Mahatma Gandhi

If it’s the case that everyone on the planet is different, a distinct entity, each with their own unique combination of characteristics, interests, and skills (not to mention physiological make-up), then why is it that “the world” insists on treating us all alike, trying to enforce on us a generic, societal norm to which we are expected to conform?

I have often noted how there appears to be a pattern to life that we are expected to comply with - it’s subtle, for the most part, but it’s there.  No-one states it outright - the government doesn’t announce that we’re being herded and penned in like sheep where they want us to be, but that’s what seems to be happening.  

Think about it - we’re born, and for a little while at the beginning we’re free.  But then we’re expected to be sent to school, and suddenly our lives are no longer our own anymore, ‘cos here is where we will be both ‘socialised’ and ‘formally’ educated in the topics and manner that someone else far removed from us dictates is appropriate (our parents have very little say in this, once they agree to turn us over to the education system), with the end goal being that we shall, hopefully, be moulded into useful citizens who will conform and contribute to society.  

Which basically means that our main objective in life will be expected to be working and making money - who gives a shit if you’re happy while you’re doing it?  Hell, everybody knows that having money makes you happy.  Don’t they?  Well, that’s what ‘the world’ would expect us to believe anyway, it seems.  Must be, since there’s so much emphasis placed on it.  

Along with making money goes the expectation that we shall want to find a romantic partner in order that we may settle down some day (kind of like sediment) and have a family, for whom we will have to provide, thus keeping alive the incentive for working, and directing our focus on the continued need to make money.  And, of course, since we have the equipment for making babies, then it’s assumed that we will naturally want to use it for that purpose at some point.  If not, then there’s something obviously ‘wrong’ with us (as if there weren’t already enough things ‘wrong’ with me already!)

Then we head into retirement, the time that we expect to be able to finally take it easy, stop chasing the money, and hopefully be able to do all those things that we weren’t able to do previously because we were too busy having to focus on making a living in order to live.  And, hopefully, of course, by now we’ve made enough to do those things.  

Except that we might well find that by this time we’ve lost the energy, enthusiasm, motivation, and physical ability to do a lot of what we dreamed of doing, having been sucked dry by the stress and general wear and tear of daily life.  Plus, of course, some of us may well have dropped down dead before then, which kind of puts the kibosh on any such plans.  So retirement literally becomes a time when we’re put out to pasture, like an old horse, for whom there’s very little use any more.  Gee, sounds great.  I can’t wait.

I understand now why, for almost the whole of the first thirty years of my life, I felt a deep sense of melancholy and gloom, having this as my invisible blueprint for what was expected of me in order to be considered a success in life, and to achieve happiness.  

One aspect in particular to which I have been giving a lot of thought  (that means obsessing) in recent weeks is school.  Do you realise that you don’t actually have to go to school; that you can legally opt out?  I didn’t know that, until now.  All those years I laboured under the illusion that I had no choice: it was either attend school, or get into trouble for truancy.  God, was I pissed off when I found out!

Sure, I’d vaguely heard about homeschooling, where, if you’re lucky, you get to be taught at home by either your parents or a private tutor.  But still, you follow the curriculum set by the education department, and you take exams.

I also recently found out that there are ‘alternative’ schools (like the Steiner Waldorf system), which place their emphasis on the needs of the individual pupil, rather than the institution, and which follow their own curriculum, giving equal importance to creative endeavours (like art, drama, dance, etc) as well as to the academic; as well as to the needs of the whole person.  Where were these people when I needed them?!

And from there I discovered unschooling, a movement dedicated to not forcing education on your child at all, but to allowing the natural process of learning to take place.  In unschooling parents don’t dictate what ‘should’ be learnt, but rather allow their children to decide what they would like to learn, based on their interests and abilities.  Nor are they expected to prove their understanding by jumping through the hoop of exams, being tested like a bloody piece of machinery before it’s allowed off the factory line and sent off to be sold.

I was astonished.  I was dumbfounded.  I was envious.  God, I wish my parents had known about that stuff when I was a child.  Instead of which I had to endure the agony, the monotony and tedium, not to mention the chronic anxiety directly related to being shoved through an average, non-creative education system, which did a grand job of sucking the soul (both creative and otherwise) out of me and my artistic aspirations.  

I went in there with a mind and body bursting with energy and ideas, but a lack of direction (mainly courtesy of having unrecognised ADHD).  I came out subdued, lifeless, full of anxiety and fear about the future, and with hardly a thought to call my own, so well-indoctrinated had I been.  But hey!, I’d got the qualifications to get myself a job as some kind of clerical worker/typist.  Wow!  Dizzy heights, I know.  What a lot to look forward to, a lifetime of being trapped in an office, with people.

I’d had all of my dreams of being a writer, an artist, an athlete dismantled.  All gone by the wayside, all considered to be simply unrealistic daydreams, fantasies, the luxury of people with the money and time to indulge in them.  Childish.  Unattainable.  Out of my league.     Considered back then to be ‘hobbies’, and not something you could make a living from: not ‘real’ work.  

No, real work is the stuff that you do to make money; that makes you miserable; that isn’t supposed to be enjoyable; that you’re glad is over by the end of the day (like school).  If you’re enjoying it then you must be doing something wrong.

And because I couldn’t use them as a means to make a living, they quickly fell by the wayside, and I stopped doing them altogether once I left education (an autistic trait, I believe - seeing no reason to do something unless it has an end purpose: mere enjoyment is not enough).

So why would God make us all uniquely individual, bestow on us widely differing gifts and talents, and then expect us to cast them aside in favour of having to learn and master the same things (egs maths, science, computers/IT, languages), thus turning us into mass-produced automatons?  I guess the answer to that is that S/He doesn’t - man does that.

Imagine all those remarkable people who have lived unique and highly creative lives, not conforming to the ‘norm’, who have produced so much incredible stuff.  How would our world look now if they’d all been forced to go through an education system designed to make them conform, and to remove their individuality?  If they’d been forced to live an ‘average’ life, making worldly goods and achievements their goals?  Doesn’t bear thinking about really, does it?  We’d still be living in the dark ages - literally, ‘cos no-one would have had the foresight to use their imagination to come up with the concept of electricity.  

We’d all still be relying on the sun, living in caves, chasing wild animals, and procreating.  Mind you, sounds preferable to the life of an ‘average’ person now - living in a shoebox-sized home, with paper-thin walls, and crammed like sardines in a tin; and working in a shoebox-sized office, with paper-thin or no walls at all, crammed in like sardines.  And people wonder why we have so many health problems when we live such an unnatural existence.  Are they mad?