Letters to My Son. Kent Nerburn

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СКАЧАТЬ everyday experience — to your own emotions, to the movements of the heavens and the language of birds, to the privations and successes of people in other lands and other times, to the artistry in the hands of the mechanic and the typist and the child. There is no limit to the learning that appears before us. It is enough to fill us each day a thousand times over.

      The dilemma of how best to educate has always pivoted on the issue of freedom to explore versus the structured transmission of knowledge.

      Some people believe that we learn best by wandering forth into an uncharted universe and making sense of the lessons that life provides.

      Others believe that we learn best by being taught the most complete knowledge possible about a subject, then being sent forth to practice and use that knowledge.

      Both ways have been tried with every possible method and in every possible combination and balance.

      If we find ourselves tempted to celebrate one approach over the other, we should remember the caution of the Chinese sage Confucius, who told his followers, “Study without thinking and you are blind; think without studying and you are in danger.”

      Formal schooling is one way of gaining education, and it should not be underestimated. School, if it is good, imparts knowledge and a context for understanding the world around us. It opens us to ideas that we could never discover on our own, and makes us one with the life of the mind as it has been shaped by people and cultures we could never meet in our own experience. It makes us part of a community of learners, and helps us give form and direction to the endless flow of experience that passes before us.

      It is also a great frustration, because it often seems irrelevant to the passions of our own interests and beliefs.

      When you feel burdened by formal education, do not be quick to cast it aside. What you are experiencing is a great surge in your growth and consciousness that is screaming out for immediate and total exploration.

      You must remember that all other learners have traveled the same path. And though all true learners have felt this urge to strike out on their own, formal education, in its many shapes and guises, has been sought and revered by all people and all cultures in all times. It has a genius that is greater than your passions, and it is abandoned at your own peril.

      Still, formal education will not inform your spirit and make you full. So, along with knowledge, you must seek wisdom. Knowledge is multiple, wisdom is singular. Knowledge is words, wisdom is silent. Knowledge is standing outside, understanding what is seen, wisdom is standing at the center, knowing what is not seen. No person can be whole without both dimensions of learning.

      There are many ways to seek wisdom. There is travel, there are masters, there is service. There is staring into the eyes of children and elders and lovers and strangers. There is sitting silently in one spot, and there is being swept along in life’s turbulent current. Life itself will grant you wisdom in ways you may neither understand nor choose.

      It is up to you to be open to all these sources of wisdom and to embrace them with your whole heart.

      So do not disparage the lessons of either the schooled or the unschooled.

      Those who have less formal education may have learned some single thing more deeply, or they may have embarked early upon the search for wisdom. In their uniqueness, they have discovered something special about life, and it is yours to experience if you are open to what they may have to teach.

      Those who have devoted their life to formal learning may have walked further along a path than you can even imagine, and may be able to lead you to a vista that will take your breath away, if only you can overcome your boredom and fatigue at the rigors of the search.

      Remember the words of the musician who was asked which was greater, knowledge or wisdom. “Without knowledge,” he answered, “I could not play the violin. Without wisdom, I could not play the music.”

      Place yourself among those who live their lives with passion, and true learning will take place, no matter how humble or exalted the setting. But no matter what path you follow, do not be ashamed of your learning. In some corner of your life, you know more about something than anyone else on earth. The true measure of your education is not what you know, but how you share what you know with others.

       CHAPTER 6

       WORK

      I often hear people say, “I have to find myself.” What they really mean is, “I have to make myself.” Life is an endlessly creative experience, and we are making ourselves every moment by every decision we make.

      That is why the work you choose for yourself is so crucial to your sense of value and well-being. No matter how much you might believe that your work is nothing more than what you do to make money, your work makes you who you are, because it is where you put your time.

      I remember several years ago when I was intent upon building my reputation as a sculptor. I took a job driving a cab, because, as I told people, “I want some job that I will never confuse with a profession.” Yet within six months I was talking like a cab driver, thinking like a cab driver, looking at the world through the eyes of a cab driver. My anecdotes came from my job, as did my observations about life. I became embroiled in the personalities and politics of the company for which I worked and developed the habits and rhythms of life that went along with my all-night driving shift. On the days when I did not drive and instead worked on my sculpture, I still carried the consciousness of a cab driver with me.

      Whether I liked it or not, I was a cab driver.

      This happens to anyone who takes a job. Even if you hate the job and keep a distance from it, you are defining yourself in opposition to the job by resisting it. By giving the job your time, you are giving it your consciousness. And it will, in turn, fill your life with the reality that it presents.

      Many people ignore this fact. They choose a profession because it seems exciting, or because they can make a lot of money, or because it holds some prestige in their minds. They commit themselves to their work, but slowly find themselves feeling restless and empty. The time they have to spend on their work begins to hang heavy on their hands, and soon they feel constricted and trapped.

      They join the legions of humanity who Thoreau said lead lives of quiet desperation — unfulfilled, unhappy, and uncertain of what to do. Yet the lure of financial security and the fear of the unknown keep them from acting to change their lives, and their best energies are spent creating justifications for staying where they are or inventing activities outside of work they hope will provide them with a sense of meaning.

      But these efforts can never be totally successful. We are what we do, and the more we do it, the more we become it. The only way out is to change our lives or to change our expectations for our lives. And if we lower our expectations we are killing our dreams, and a man without dreams is already half dead.

      So you need to choose your work carefully. You need to look beyond the external measurements of prestige and money and glamour to see what you will be doing on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute basis to see if that is how you want to spend your time. Time may not be the way you measure the value of your work, but it is the way you experience it.

      What you need to do is think of work as “vocation.” This word may seem stilted in its tone, but it has a wisdom within it. It comes from the Latin word for calling, which comes from the СКАЧАТЬ