Day 3311, from earth.

Daily picture, Poetry, Quotes
We live in darkness
a modern cave
we believe

not the messenger
who speaks differently
another way
not from heaven
but from earth


Krishnamurti

Chapter I
Education and the Significance of Life

When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia. This is especially true in colleges and universities. We are turning out, as if through a mold, a type of human being whose chief interest is to find security, to become somebody important, or to have a good time with as little thought as possible.

Conventional education makes independent thinking extremely difficult. Conformity leads to mediocrity. To be different from the group or to resist environment is not easy and is often risky as long as we worship success. The urge to be successful, which is the pursuit of reward whether in the material or in the so-called spiritual sphere, the search for inward or outward security, the desire for comfort—this whole process smothers discontent, puts an end to spontaneity and breeds fear; and fear blocks the intelligent understanding of life. With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in.

Day 3308, looking up.

Daily picture, Poetry

One advantage of getting older is that you (can) realize that age doesn’t make you smarter. I have been carrying many of my self-proclaimed best ideas with me for 30 years now, and I have fine-tuned them a little here and there, and maybe see them clearer in a wider context, but they are basically the same ideas.

I am older now, but I have learned over the years that I know very little about many things and a little more about a few things. This knowledge that we don’t get smarter or have better ideas when we get older is something I also use when I look at people that I have admired, like Richard Dawkins, for instance. When I read his books and learned about what was written in them, I was still young, naive, and impressed. Naivety is something that slowly erodes, and though I am still impressed by most of his work, I am also disappointed. Over the years, I have learned that these writers are just like you and me, and the internet gave me the tools to easily find out what lives they live behind the façade I erected in front of them. They can have their opinions, of course, but it’s just a shame that with all the effort they put into their professional work, they say utter nonsense while the answers are easily accessible from their phones. 

But now I know about his political views, which makes me sad. I long for the days that I  could naively believe that a scholar who has produced such enlightened work could never simultaneously produce so much nonsense when they speak about things they know little about. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect in full force. It’s what they say: never meet your idols, just keep reading their good books.

It’s just disappointment, and I fear I will unknowingly do the same…and that’s my first lie, it’s not fear, I know it.