what is education?

what is education?

on one hand it is a formal course of studies with a fixed end in mind, for example, to attain knowledge of a new language, or ability in some scientific specificity like engineering or some scientific trade like biological scientist, or even in a trade like carpentry.......

education can take the form of an apprenticeship like some kind of craftsman, a pottery master, perhaps.... or in an institution like a university, of which there have been 500 years ago in andalucia in spain........ before that baghdad was a centre of learning in the world, producing algebra and chemistry and other gnosises

the ancient egyptians were said to have developed a kind of electric lightbulb and been able to brew magnificent beer, as well as having outstanding engineering (post the construction of the mysterious pyramids of Cheops)

the ancient Greeks are famed for their early foray into democracy and the philosophers they produced like Socrates and Plato

before the gushing onset of the modern era, perhaps best marked by the achievements of the 20th century (in its entirety) and even before that in the steam energy revolution and the efforts of the british and americans to industrialize in the 19th century, this before gushing onset, and at its outset, we still find quaint examples of literary philosophers like Nietzsche and Descartes.......

nowadays, while there are very many thousands of university educated writers cum philosophers, a great many of them working in the media as journalists and writer/commentators of various conditions of modern affairs (mostly politics and power sharing/control in society)

then there are the creative novelists who engage the minds and imaginations of children with there long worded epics about dragons and skulls and what not

all of these things are education, along with television...... once, in spain, a Nation that prides itself on its culture, in terms of love for literature and painting (perhaps to the point of overly austerity and most definitely with a strong, and i will say, ignorant influence of Catholicism), a 16 year old at high school there marvelled at me how one of the new yorker girls billeting at her home in madrid openly confessed that the 16 year old american girl spent HOURS every day watching tv - perhaps 5 or 6 or more

i have many times been an apologist for americans, finding in them many qualities perhaps worthy of defense.... for example, i would have thought, well this girl is sacrificing her own best interests to further the mastery and establishment of television which is a vital medium..... however, this was an ugly defense.... whether there's any truth to it, we'll leave that to you to decide, but we daresay, even with all that nasty catholicism, the spanish girl seemed infinitely more cultured than the american girl with her hours of tv........ probably in her own country she would have been considered a loser for not participating in group activities like glee club, marching bands, sports teams and so forth...... or maybe she just lied about her tv habits -- but certainly there are millions more like her out there

can we come to an end in learning? i certainly read voraciously as a child and teenager... from my first book, a biography written for teenage level english, i never could get enough of the things that mattered to me..... in an amazing coincidence, i saw a great many of the novels i read turned into movies by the 'hollywood establishment' after 9/11, with the exception of huxley's 'brave new world' which i wouldn't be surprised if some producers in hollywood decide to make, before i die

but while i sought further education, or at least a mental challenge after all this reading, even if it meant living in a society where i couldn't speak the language.... some of my friends would have said that i was 'full of shit' -- with all that learning and still setting such a lousy example, living like some kind of lazy, severely underfunded rock star... too lazy to work, drinking too much -- unnecessary complications with women......

can education have a finality? i find myself, while once an avid reader, now reluctant to read anything apart from news articles published by the major american and british agencies and sundry others like reuters, ap, etc.....

a kind of 'witch' woman in spain once told me about americans: with americans, you get a guy that knows nothing but how to put the lid on a coca-cola bottle, he is a wizard at that, but he doesn't know how to do anything else'....... whether this is true or no, the plain reality is that there are so many fields of endeavor, we do need experts in various matters like war, geopolitics, science, space exploration (which is actually just orbital activities) and so forth

i marvel that i could never see in australia in my youth, so many seeds for potential -- even now, sadly, these seeds still are slow to grow and grow in silence, due to the domination of the mass media and intelligentsia (universities and suchlike) by the english (who here, as stated many times in this blog) questionably misrepresent their ethnicity for unclear reasons (possible because as the gravedigger in hamlet said, they're all mad)...... still a society like australia affords opportunities for interracial relationships and growth and success that european nations do not have

in the case of the americans, having so much practice of melting-pot-ism, we find that their race is already strongly established and can be more or less considered a whole new race, unlike australia, which is still very embryonic, although definitely reformist

in japan, many is the case of the man who keeps his same job his entire lifelong, for the same company, travelling the same train ride to and from work, decade after decade... i couldn't stomach this myself as a younger man and even now wonder how i can stomach the loss of adventure, the inability, without an exciting and hard to come by job such as foreign correspondent for the media, how i can go on living in this country -- nice as it is

what did i find challenging to the mind and spirit above all else? living in bulgaria -- the two years i spent there in 2007 and 2008 were a bona fide hell -- pure adversity in concentrated form....... certainly, this adversity must have produced virtue according to bacon -- however i question that as i felt i regressed in bulgaria, falling victim to uncontrollable anger and negativity -- much of which is an unfortunate legacy of the russian experiment and foray into controlled governmental economics and social engineering......... still, as a person who wishes to do all he can to improve the mental side of his life.... the question becomes, how? perhaps the lack of desire to read more is due to a kind of boredom with words.... words, words, words.... still, this isn't to say that my mind is even worthy of all of shakespeare's plays, i never could try swallowing macbeth, although i may try again one day -- i could get the merchant of venice, hamlet, the taming of the shrew, a midsummer night's dream, king lear.... they all made sense...... one day i'll try at macbeth again

the next matter of education is genetics...... genes take generations to nurture and in the more or less peaceful sharing of this gigantic, although now thoroughly mastered (in terms of ease-of-travel) planet, we find that while an occasional war breaks out between one set of gene-bearers/Nations and the next, or civil war, most of the people live more or less peacibly, however they hamstring their ability to advance by unfortunate aparteid-ism and token-ism as ventured many times before in this blog

we find that we are all seeking a great deal of comfort and civilization.... where a lifespan can and does often reach 90 years or more with people's minds in good condition at this age, we ask, what WILL a man do with his life?

i find that while i enjoy some social intercourse, too much of it is unpleasant and forced... i often found i never lacked for friends and that sometimes there were too many friends or folks to hang out with, and sometimes too few and loneliness and depression set in....... my biggest fault, i think, in this lifetime has been an unwillingness to work when i could have, and a sense of stung indignation which unfortunately married laziness and sloth leading to a kind of depression, which, perhaps, in the end, helped me with my ends

after all, who am i to work and feel happy when children are starving in africa, when people are imprisoned unhappily and very likely unfairly