October 22, 2007

The Value of Learning

I resisted consciously learning for many years. The best I can ever say about that was what my daughter said when I asked her why she was a (6th Grade) teacher. She said, “because I hated school.”

When I took the est training in 1978, that finally shifted for me – Nothing ever fascinates me as much as discovering how much I’ve learned backwards, how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know…. Worse, that I thought I knew.

It’s amazing how little of the sky you can see when you’re looking from the bottom of a hole. And there’s no end to the sky.

Now I have a different issue – what should I learn? What should I pay attention to? I can form sub-questions – What can I have fun learning that will still be valuable to know? How can I broaden my perspective without getting so wide that I lose any focus?

This is the downside of our ease of access and the virtually infinite tools we have. My grandchildren have all of these marvelous tools and no tools for discrimination. As far as I can tell, schools are still not a very good learning environment.

Useful Quotations

The objective of the game would be to explore ways to make it possible for anybody and everybody in the human family to enjoy the total earth without any human interfering with any other human and without any human gaining advantage at the expense of another.
R. Buckminster Fuller

How can this great Love be inside of me
Look at your eyes.
They are small but they see enormous things."
Rumi

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp. Some are pretty. Some are Dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors. But, they all fit nicely into the same box.
Source Unknown

 Happy is the man whose deeds are greater than his learning
Midrash (exegesis of the Torah)

Creative Corner

Yesterday was my 40th Anniversary
It's so exciting to know
what else I've forgotten
I'm sitting here remembering
how long it's been
It's been a while
it's been forever

remembering that restaurant
it makes me smile
you looked so fine

I'm sitting here remembering
I keep forgetting to say I love you
I keep forgetting to say how I love you
how very much I love you

I'm sitting here remembering
how long it's been
You're in my life
in me forever.

remembering a thousand nights
you taste like wine

And
I keep forgetting to say I love you
I keep forgetting to say how I love you
how very much I love you
oh darling
how I love you.

What's Next?

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