It is not enough that you build an invisible cage around yourself and stay inside, for there is so much to see, learn and understand. No knowledge is inferior and unnecessary. Even gossiping, watching a movie or chit chatting can provide you with valuable lessons. Of course only the information must get into the head and not opinions, preferences and judgement as they block learning. For e.g. I recently learn't so much from the movie avatar and the gossip session of how one of my friend's cousin's marriage took place.
Books are the most valuable source of knowledge. It is very wise to in fact worship books on Saraswathi pooja day as a token of our gratitude for the knowledge it has provided us. I for my part believe in handling and keeping books neatly and with respect, whether the information inside it has gone inside me and benifited me or not. Tearing, unnnecessary scribbling, or damaging the book in any other way is not a clever thing to do as it clearly shows that you have not learn't much from it or even in life.
The next basic thing is to have a questioning mind. (The exception to this is the faith you have in God or even your loved ones.) The more you have questions, the more you seek answers, the more curiosity you have, the more you learn. One must ask the right questions, at the right moment and to the right person. By right question means meaningful, sensible ones. You must put a great thought into the question, try to find out the answer yourself-from books or other sources(like internet) and if your efforts fail, you can put forward the question to a well qualified person. This is quite intuitive and one gets the knack of asking questions by practice.
Some other ancillary ways to acquire knowledge is to meet and talk to different kinds of people and travel to many places. The most important quality to acquire knowledge is to have courage-believe me loads of them. First have fearlessness and courage then everything else follows. I am one person struggling to develop these qualities. I get scared, nervous and continuously sweat for every new challenge I face in life. This should be avoided for it creates a barrier and it is not going to help me in any way.
To summarise:
- Read a lot
- Have many friends and keep making many friends
- Learn from everything you do and everything that happens to you
- Travel to many places
- Be courageous
Read your post. You must remember life is not a problem in calculus which must be solved in a definite way. I believe in taking life as it comes. Never search for lessons in every good/bad experience. A habitual smile, giggle and laugh will fetch you enormous happiness and, of course, friends. I do accept traveling a lot is good. I love visiting places like remote villages, traveling places which are close to nature. When I wake up each morning, I preach to myself "I am going to enjoy today and today is my day". I should say that I get it right almost every time. Think positive. Whatever comes to you is for your good. Take things in life in their simplest form. To some ignorance is bliss.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your valuable comment. Life is something which is given to us as a gift. One must learn from everything whether good or bad, big or small and progress continuously. Our whole body is changing every minute, cells are growing, why not have some development in our state of mind? One who refuses to learn and transform is the person who has started aging and fast approaching death and deterioration. I totally agree with your thought of thinking positive, as negative thoughts only mar learning.
ReplyDeleteRather than saying "I am going to enjoy today",to say "I am going to learn something new today and I am going to love this day" is better. Thats what I feel.
While I agree with the idea that one ought to relentlessly learn from things, what I find unsettling is the premise you appear to work on that this knowledge ought not to be pleasurable. Surely, it's possible to have fun while we learn, to take immense, giggling, jouissance in every bit of intellectual activity we undertake?
ReplyDeleteAnd again, yes, it's important to question and it's equally important to experience and this is why I think it's important, as Malathy says above, not to actively wonder all the time what one is learning from things, but sometimes simply to give over one's mind and body to the newness of experience - as even in the act of something as simple as taking a jog. I think that keeps one from making preconceived value judgements and keeps one's conceptions of "right" and "wrong" and "good" and "bad" ever widening.
I don't know what to say, I've two opinions. While I do agree with your idea, I don't think acquiring knowledge should be the most important thing in life. Of course I love 'collecting' knowledge (you know me)just about anything anthropology, evolution, history, ethnology (anything except our school/college version of Maths) Life is more about experiences, good and bad, usefull and otherwise. I mean no experience is useless. Even the worst of situations in life gives you something reminiscent. Questioning all the time burns your brain! Seriously! Imagine you're visiting a hamlet on a mountain and its raining and you're sitting on the slush completely wet, dirty and shivering, simply gazing at the valley beyond the meadow. You don't ask questions on such times, you think of nonsense or you don't think at all. Things pass through your mind and you're not connected to them. These are the most beautiful moments that make 60/70 yrs of life meaningful. Enjoying life's challenges, good, bad and ugly is more important than knowledge.
ReplyDeletehey i don't know if my ramble is in anyway connected to your post.
ReplyDeleteI think that all the time we associate knowledge with studying, cramming, those nightmarish moments before exams. It is not our fault, our education system has made us so.
ReplyDeleteWell, by the so called 'knowledge' here I mean everything you imbibe from life, the more you imbibe the richer you become. Practical Experiences strenghthen your knowledge,even more than just reading books.
The aim of life must not be to seek pleasure alone, but to seek pleasure in learning and of course applying what you learn in our daily lives to make ourselves and our life beautiful.