Knowing...what?

Reading, writing, understanding, connecting, remembering, framing arguments, and looking at things from different and sometimes alternative and/or connected perspectives. The way I see it, one of the purposes of education - in the ideal sense - is that it helps a human being to understand more of what he sees in the world around (and beyond) and to bring however much he can within a connected framework of comprehensibility. To know, remember, to connect, and to understand, and to experience a profound joy while engaging in such mental gymnastics. So much for education.

I realise fully well, and always have that degrees mean nought without the mental keenness that is required. Complete duds can acquire degrees. Nor have I believed that being within the framework of formal education somehow automatically confers intelligence - even of the plain academic sort - onto otherwise dull and non-probing minds. If anything being within formal academia, makes many people far more stupid, narrow minded, and more pompous than they would have been otherwise. But it may provide for them with the means of acquiring a livelihood.

In fact a decade or so ago I almost quit formal education altogether but after a couple of attempts I quit trying to quit formal education because I didn't see what abilities I could sell in order to make a livelihood.

I know that one certainly doesn't need to be within the formal academic system to know, remember, and connect. And it's not just detached knowing and objective knowing that I'm talking about. The most brilliant scientists were also humane and connected in that they were never far away from contemplating on the philosophical significance and magnificence of this universe and our place within it. But what is our place in it? Or have we all self-deluded ourselves into thinking that we have some higher, some other noble purpose than to just sit, drink, eat, and exist? I cannot and will not believe that (for one thing: it's much too bleak to think of). For what of the artists and composers, who felt and created? And what of the mystics, the saints, and the seers, the poets and the prophets? The Ones who knew? The ones who spoke about a love so profound? How did they know? And they lived and acted with what they knew. Nobody had to tell them that they were right or wrong, and some did not die peacefully for believing in what they did, and for valuing what they did. How did they know that they weren't just crackpots? There is a difference for sure between the crackpot and the saint!

And what is it that we have done with all our knowing? How is it that we still live in the state that we do? We still kill, maim, plunder, and if not that we spend our lives in a state of unthinking apathy, indifference, fear, an inability to communicate, an inability to focus, an inability to love or to make love matter....

If all the knowing proceeds along a single path one would think that at some point wisdom would emanate. Yet, and I cannot get around this, how is it that we humans seem to make the same mistakes over and over again?

I'm somewhat peeved that I don't seem to have answers to any of the really important questions - any more than I did when I was 17. At least back then I was cocky enough to believe with the fullest and most absolute conviction that I would know all there was to know, and clearly and consciously, and live with that knowledge - and act on that knowledge, and die wise and young. Ho-ho-ho.

I remember The Telegraph (or was it The Statesman?) used to run those fun pop psych. quizzes every week, from which I remember one question. It ran: If you were given a choice would you rather have fame or wisdom? I remember saying 'fame'. I'd reasoned that being famous was not something one could control but was something that one indeed could just 'have' through some accidental quirk of fate....but wisdom, I reasoned had to be gathered, had to be an experience, and had to be the fulfilling consequence of how one lived one's life. It was something that would have to be accumulated, and would have to be earned. One couldn't just 'have' wisdom or 'be given' wisdom (well one can argue that one could be blessed with wisdom). It was akin to greatness as opposed to mere fame of a popular and ephemeral sort. It was something that I would have to possess through my own abilities - however much or meagre, through my own conduct and through my own travels. Even knowing wasn't enough. Knowing but not acting out on what one knew meant that one was no wiser. Now when I look back on that response for a silly quiz I wonder whether it means that I was a smart alec or whether I really was sensible for at least feeling that wisdom wasn't something that one could just have just the way I'd felt about some other things: that old age didn't make one mature and that intelligence wasn't something that could be faked....or maybe it was a quirky incident set up for the purposes of reminding me some years down the line that one should never not truthfully say what one would very much like to have - even if it seems impossible and even if it is in response to a 'silly' pop psych. quiz question.

And so now with another 17 years added on I find myself knowing that knowing still matters, truth matters, goodness matters, courage matters, and humour matters. And when fear eclipses the senses and nothing seems to matter apart from the horror and the haunting nightmares - kindness, laughter, and love matter. These do matter otherwise, without doubt.

In the meanwhile, one earns a livelihood, gets a proper job, prays for those less fortunate, prays with earnestness for the health, happiness, joy, and peace of one's loved ones, and prays with desperation that somewhere, somehow, sometime love matters in an absolute sense.

Yet another Spring Break

I did something that I've never done before. Nothing terribly exciting or adventurous. I went for a walk all by myself around Prophet's Town. I've walked all around town (well not along the highways or roads, which hardly have any pavements - I don't fancy getting run over by accident) but never in Prophet's Town. Come to think of it - I still don't know why it's called Prophet's Town or Prophet's Town for that matter.

This week is Spring Break. Every other year, I normally roam all over the world in my head during about the same time (unless I've gone visiting outer space - also in my head). This year I had no intentions of doing any terrestrial or galactic space-mind trips since I've never really learnt how to control the trips, and I knew that Guha and I weren't going to be travelling to real places, so I settled in quietly to pass the Break. I have been reading some books that I've been meaning to read for a while and browsing through others (some of which have been in my book-shelf since God-knows-when), writing bits and pieces, thinking about some things, not-thinking about others, listening to some music, driving, walking here and there around town, doing some miscellaneous stuff, and working when my head is stuffy and full.

So today I went to Prophet's Town. The creek was flooded. The forest was silent. The weather was sunny and cold. I walked from one end of the woods to the other, and then back again, and tried not to think too much about anything - but that didn't happen. I couldn't stop thinking. I poked my head out of the forest for a second. The prairie grassland stretched out in all directions. A soft yellow-brown field of swaying stalks. It's odd how this place is always the same yet feels different every time. I don't know how I would have felt if I had lived close enough to take a walk through those woods every day. Would have loved it most likely. May even have learnt how to swim in a natural pool. I broke off the trail only once just to go and splash around in the low part of the creek for some happy minutes. The current wasn't too bad, and I could feel the soft tug. The creek was burbling and gushing. I felt the water with my fingers. It wasn't icy - just about cool to the touch. But I knew it would start feeling cold in one rush if I pretended my fingers were fish. I looked down one way of the creek where the water from the lake was rushing out of a big circular pipe and splashing into the creek, and the mind clicked a photo.

I thought of walking all the way around the lake but all of a sudden, I didn't feel like it. With a gulp and some stuffed images in my head, I bounded up the bank near the creek, and headed back. Back to the car. Back into town.

P.S: The town I stay in is a lovely town in its own rights. I'd never say otherwise.

Bertrand Russell's Three Passions

This is one of those pieces that make me stop a while, and for three different reasons, and for some in-between. The piece itself is enough for this post. And I'm not being lazy. I can ponder, wonder, talk and ruminate elsewhere till the cows come home or till kingdom come.

16th March; 20:18: I'd been saving this all this time wondering whether to write a page and a half, but I think not.

Talking...

A thought to consider-

The old, homeless man talks with himself. I, on the other hand, talk with the very real friend in my head....