In youth we learn, in age we understand.
—Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Thank you for the quote, Still the Lucky Few!
Do you agree with that quote? Does it represent what has happened in your life? It doesn’t for me. I’ve always been interested in lifelong learning, and understanding comes when it comes. Or not. Being confused is fine too. It’s better than thinking I understand more than I do. It keeps me questioning and open to new ideas/ways of thinking. There’s a lot to be said for the Socrates quote:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Which doesn’t mean it isn’t soul-satisfying to learn new things. That’s why I’m so taken by Durga Kami in Nepal. He’s 68 years old and walks an hour six mornings a week to go to high school. He’s now in the 10th grade.
He wanted to become a teacher when he was a child but there was no money for school. So when his children left home and his wife died, he attended the local primary school to learn to read and write. When he graduated he received a scholarship for the high school he now attends. He hopes to continue learning until he dies, and he hopes he can encourage others. “If they see an old person with white beard like me studying in school they might get motivated as well,” he says.
He’s a man after my own heart.
We’ve had people in the UK much older than that getting degrees and studying all sorts of challenging subjects. I might do some serious studying myself if and when I retire (at the moment I’m still working 2½ days a week). Its a good way of keeping the brain active.
That happens here, too. The amazing thing about Kami is he was illiterate most of his life.
I love the quote from Socrates as well—keeps us humble, and willing to learn more! Durga Kami is an inspiration!
Life is a lot more fun when we get our egos out of the way. 🙂
I too believe that learning is a lifelong process. I wish that I could understand many things that I have learnt about life.
I like the mysteries. It makes it more fun when the light occasionally dawns.
my stepdaughter lived with us. and when she became a teenager she always responded to anything and everything being discussed with ” I know. ”
finally one day her dad (my Bob) said… ” NO ROBIN. you DON’T know.”
she just stared at him like a light bulb had been turned on! LOL!
and that opened a whole new discussion of learning and being curious about everything! and to not have a know-it-all personality.
I learned that day as well. to be open and curious and always willing to learn!
Good for him!
I think, no I KNOW that I’ve learned a lot more now than I ever did when I was young.
Mostly thanks to the Internet.
Every day I feel like I learn something else
and it makes me wish that I was born later so that I could have had access to all this information earlier!
😀
I love the internet too. It would have made a big difference in my life to have had it earlier, but I probably wouldn’t appreciate it as much now.
good on anyone who wants this kind of life…lately I have been questioning my desire to continue to acquire more knowledge – I keep wondering if any of it of use because of various reasons… (sorry that sounds negative).
just got back from a 2 days retreat and most of the time, I was working on my project with absolutely no one else around me – it made me realise quite a number of things (some of it quite negative but in a positive kind of way) and slightly lonely that I couldn’t be part of the general hub-bub going on around me… (but then not wanting that interaction at all, hard to explain).
I’m at a x-roads with certain things…things I should address before anything else – I may withdraw from my Uni course, it starts tomorrow – so I will make up my mind by mid-week…
Please let us know how it goes. It sounds as if the retreat was worthwhile, even if not as much fun as you might have liked. I do love hearing about your life.