Saturday, January 17, 2009
Contradictions in a Student's Life
"From your first day at school you are cut off from life to make theories”
Taisen Deshimaru
LIFE is the continual exploration of the relationship between the individual and the world. Institutional schooling inverts this process. Our education system progressively alienates the individual from him-Self.Obedience and imitation require nothing original from the child. Sit, stand, kneel. Accepting blindly other's ideas and behaviour. We submit ourselves to others, not thinking for ourselves.
We are just a Cog in the economic machinery, through years of brainwashing.
Modern education literally sucks the LIFE out of the student.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education”
Bertrand Russell
The Chinese say, to know and not to do is not to know”; therefore it can be reasonably assumed that most students and nearly all academics know nothing.
The definition of success is such that in order to SUCCEED we must imitate. And to imitate is to add to the mountain of (largely irrelevant) technical information that, being abstract, literally draws the student out of direct connection with the world.
Science is Reason’s most gifted child. Science seeks to formulate principles or laws that account for the operations of the natural world. The scientific method is simple:
1. Observe phenomena
2. Formulate a hypothesis to explain the observed phenomena
3. Test hypothesis
This simple schema allows us to see exactly where Science and Reason fit together with Art. The formulation of a hypothesis is an entirely creative and intuitive act; it is Art. In other words Reason, if not grounded in Art, does not work.
If Science is not grounded in Art it loses its direction – the source of its hypotheses. Art is the domain of the Self; it is direct intuitive knowledge. Separated from his-Self the student is a stranger to Art, intuition, creativity and authentic desire.
Conclusion:
The secret to fulfilment, happiness and a better world is there is no secret. After wrestling with the enormous absurdity and frustration of modern life you eventually say: Fuck it! This deep thought is depressing me too much. I just want to enjoy myself”, and ironically you solve your dilemma. You rediscover what you already knew as a child - that happiness is your purpose - and realise that, as an adult, doing what makes you happy is the most revolutionary act imaginable. Oh, and for those solemn souls who think such selfish anarchic pleasure will destroy the world, haven’t you ever noticed that happiness is something that only grows when it is shared?
Rejecting every value, belief and direction that doesn’t emanate from within your-Self is necessary to ‘clear the decks’, so the speak. With this reversal of perspective education becomes a matter of using that which resonates with that within you and ignoring the rest. That is, education becomes part of the Art of living - it becomes part of LIFE.
And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good - need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
Robert Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
