So Let the Learning Begin!

I took a lot (and I mean a lot!) of philosophy, anthropology, theology, sociology, political science and psychology courses. I also went a little crazy with some film, art, music, and communication courses. I constantly do my own research and learning through observation, reading, questioning, conversations, philosophizing and just by going out into the world and looking at some subjects face to face. I cut off the TV and News completely “the world’s mirror of ugliness” Instead of watching a video or reading a book about something, I like to go find it, watch it, hold it, listen to it and ask others questions about it. I mean did Newton read about gravity in a book? Did Leonardo da Vinci’s discoveries in the fields of painting, sculpture, architecture, astronomy, engineering, geology, mathematics, botany and animal behavior come from a book?

While reading is important, people forget to wander, roam, sit, contemplate, observe and learn first-hand from the world that is abundant with information. As if all this information in books just appeared, in books ready for one’s reading. How do you think it got there? People just like me and you who didn’t go to college. Yet they went to the best university of all, where they learned and wrote the masterpieces we still read and study today, the studied the UNIVERSE directly. Many have done this before, but we are taught to work hard and get our degrees so we can get better jobs to pay off all the crap we bought with borrowed money and continue to do so.

Our homes, cars, clothes, televisions, blackberries, play stations, DVD players, MP3 players, laptops and all the other junk which we’re taught to need and feel left out if we don’t have. Garbage that becomes old a week or two later and you need the next, newer, better, sleeker, smaller version in order to “keep up with the times.” We are made to feel inadequate or strange if we don’t have such things. As if the possession of such mind-numbing, laziness-inducing objects is the “norm.” I am an active knowledge seeker. Sometimes by doing this I can see things that a book or a video would have never shown me.

Perspective, Philosophy, and Culture

I have traveled and met a variety of people and have been exposed to different cultures, religions, languages, peoples, traditions and customs. This has driven me to understand that I know nothing at all and that “cultural relativity” is a very important tool to posses when trying to understand the world around me. I believe in everything and nothing. Meaning that, to me, anything is a possibility and what we know for sure today may turn out (and usually does) to be wrong either tomorrow, a hundred or a thousand years from now. No one knows anything for sure and those things we deem impossible sometimes turn out to be very possible.