FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 26: “What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.” ― Henry David Thoreau
We become programmed and automatized by education. It is a dissemination of the facts that others have accumulated in books and decide we should be taught.
There was a time in my 50s when I went to college and took a history course. An undergraduate, elementary course in American History. It was illuminating! Because history of this country had been completely re-written from what I was taught in the 1960s. More of us had opened our minds already, but the books were so different!
I love Henry David Thoreau. His life is fascinating to me. I remember reading “Civil Disobedience” in the 7th or 8th Grade and knowing I was born to be a dissident and rebel. I could not fathom the idiocy of what was going on in the world around me at that time.
Sadly, much of what I learned and believed then is still part of the dogma that is handed down to all of us in the nightly news and the cultural information we all receive. I choose to walk another path with that. When we look at Step 9 and its application to our lives, this is part of the behavioral problems I always had.
I don’t believe the blah-blah of the media or the blah-blah that is handed down from “on-high”, or from our governmental “authorities.” Never have, never will. I am a big fan of Einstein as well, especially the phrase “Never stop questioning everything.”
My brain is way too smart for me to handle sometimes. I think way too much. I do question everything. But, then I also learn about more that way. I study and question and study and question. I am grateful for that. I also know that when I am learning about these things, I am growing and developing a broader approach to life than the one I previously had.
One of the things that has always been true. I want to explore every side of each question. I don’t just look at one answer. I want to see 10!
Dolphin Hug 