The Love of Learning

Learning has lost its value for some people. It has become that requirement that we must all meet in order to move on to the more interesting parts of our lives. Most no longer go to school excited, wishing to learn more about algebra or history. It has become more of a mechanized routine: sit down, take notes, cram everything into your head, pass the test, and forget it all. I admit that this has also occurred to me, not because I dislike learning, but because I have lived with a false definition of learning for so long. Most of my life I have believed learning consisted of memorizing information that others wanted me to, of researching topics that we need to know in order to survive in our society. That is far from what learning truly is.

Learning should arouse excitement, it should make you wake up every morning eager to start a new day. Learning should be shaped around your interests and should be devoted to that which catches your attention. It should keep you up at night and make you forget about whether or not you have eaten in the past six hours. If learning is pure and consistent it can be innovative. It will bring about changes because it will come from individuals whom experience changes everyday and whom embrace new things with passion. 

There was a specific line in the interview that really struck a chord. "You can't take a human being and put them to work at a job that under uses the brain and keep them working at it for decades and decades and then say 'well that job isn't there, go do something more creative'. You have beaten the creativity out of them." I, for one, am that kind of person that states that they are not creative at all. I cringe when asked to draw a picture and get frustrated when I cannot see shapes in the clouds. I admit that I have not felt excited about learning as I once did. Now I begin to question whether I have been using my brain correctly all this time, whether I have been learning what truly interests me. That then leads to a different question, how do I know what interests me and not the system that has influenced us all in different but inevitable ways? I want to feel excited again. I do get glimpses of it every once and a while, but I want it to accompany me all of my life.