… begins when you leave behind your will to pursue your personal fascination.
The cost ~ only your Bliss!
Beginning with books
I still remember some of the books I read before I was ten years old …
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The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
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The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
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The Voyage of the “Beagle” by Charles Darwin and Millicent E. Selsam
and of course … the Boy Scout Handbook, as well as many others.
I remember reading for as long as I can remember. Of all the things my parents did for their children filling the house with books and a love of reading was among their greatest gifts to us.
While we weren’t particularly wealthy or even well off, we were comfortable. My dad was a steadily employed blue collar, middle class worker … a carpenter by trade. He worked for a division of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and on occasion did some extra work on weekends to supplement his income as well. But I can’t remember ever being told I couldn’t have a book I wanted.
In addition to the books in our home my mother was a fan of encyclopedias, and I remember the encyclopedia salesman coming to our house one day and selling my family a set of World Book Encyclopedias. This set became a staple of my research for many school projects and papers throughout my elementary school years. The set also continued to grow with each edition of the Year Books. Over the years my mother also added specialty encyclopedias on space exploration, animals, geography and even a set of The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau encyclopedia. So information overload isn’t something new to me by any means.
Even with all the books and encyclopedias we had in the house I was a frequent library rat, spending hours perusing the shelves of books there. I was really fortunate to attend a school from Kindergarten to 8th grade that had a library annex housed at the school. We had regular library classes all through my school years, where we learned how to use the lib ray, including the card catalog (only some of you who are old enough will actually remember using card catalogs I’m betting … or maybe even a library for that matter!). We also learned how to do research, find and request books that weren’t available on the shelves of the small library at our school, and we had the opportunity to check out books during these classes as well.
By about the fifth grade I had read every book in the children’s section I was interested in and got special dispensation to move into the adult stacks, with the caveat that I couldn’t check out any books with “adult” themes … but the rest of the library was now available to me. The first thing I remember reading was a book by Shunryu Suzuki, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” because I was interested in Karate and Kung Fu … remember this was around the time of Bruce Lee and the Green Hornet. Just after that came “Kung Fu” with David Carradine too that started airing when I was 13. That was the perfect age to be completely entranced by Kwai Chang Caine … and I was as hooked on martial arts as any other red blooded American boy could be at that time.
So here I was about to enter high school with books leading the way …
I went to a semi-elite catholic college preparatory high school and started what was then still a classical college prep curriculum … four years of history, math, science, foreign language, classical studies (including religion and philosophy), social studies and history, english literature and language studies … you get the idea I’m sure. In high school every year we had a book sale and in my Freshman year I picked up a copy of a book by W.D. Norwood called, “The Judoka” … it proved to be a life shaping book for me … and I’ve read it a dozen time since then.
However, what I also found out was that I could read books that were just above my punching level and still make sense of them. It was during those years, impelled by my classical studies teacher that I read Homer and Virgil, and then went onto read other classics on my own like Dante’s trilogy. I also became fascinated with science during that time and began reading deeply there as well … and I’d been reading as much philosophy as I could get my hands on since I first read Suzuki, both Oriental and Western philosophy. By the time I graduated high school I had a substantial canon of great works under my belt, as well as some pretty substantial science and literature. By the end of my high school career I was also beginning to read and study mathematics and logic on my own as well.
One of the downsides of all this reading was that college classes were utterly boring to me for the most part, and I skipped far more than I attended. The end result of that was a doomed college career that ended pretty much before it started. The upside was I had much more time to read what interested me … a pursuit I engaged in vigorously, some might even say with abandon.
The first twenty years … and the following thirty …
Well … if I were to sum up the first twenty years of my intellectual journey I’d have to say it was all about consumption. I was taught and learned to be a consumer of information (a practice that I continue, sometimes feverishly, through today). That all came to a screeching halt for me as I attempted to “do” college. The insistence that I spend another four plus years consuming more information was beyond me. I had mega dosed on information and needed to move beyond inputing to outputting, but the challenge was no one had taught me how to do that other than to simply regurgitate what I’d consumed cramming for tests, like an information bulimic.
What I wanted … nay, needed … was a means to digest the information, assimilate it thoroughly and create something anew. So upon leaving the grand institution of higher education I began a different journey outside of those hallowed halls. I began to pursue the integration and innovation of knowledge, far better for my psyche than the mere accumulation thereof. I learned many lessons along the way … one being that it’s a harder task to leave behind the information you’ve consumed to create something new from it, than it is to repeat it upon command like a favorite pupil of some tenured professor … or maybe better put the lapdog of the same.
I also learned that there’s a price to be paid for NOT SPEWING FORTH ACCUMULATED INFORMATION UPON COMMAND IN FAVOR OF CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO OF THE INFORMATION KEEPERS. Specifically, I learned that the ability to document that you’ve attended the requisite classes, passed the requisite tests and bear the imprimatur of the institution where you paid your dues is more significant that possessing the knowledge or skills declared by such imprimatur.
For the last thirty years I’ve continued to seek my own way, deepen my knowledge and skills, integrate and innovate upon the information I’ve consumed … and pay the price of not prostrating myself before the alter of higher education. In these past thirty years I moved beyond being a mere consumer of information to a developer, designer and architect of information … making output more critical in my learning strategy than input. I even committed myself to earning a doctorate and writing the requisite dissertation to document the research I completed along the way.
While the price has been high, flaunting my lack of pandering to the popular notion of education as documented by the receipt of parchment alone … the payoff has been equally high.
Keeping the Status Quo
If the achievement of pandering to the social and political pressure to document ones knowledge, skills and expertise by attaining certification from an “accredited” institution is possessing the paperwork to prove it, the achievement of not pandering to the professorial elite is possessing the resiliency to pursue what cannot be documented by others because you choose to blaze a trail not yet broken.
Make no mistake about it by the way, the pressure to attain the documentation of institutional certification is well regulated and overseen by the political establishment, virtually guaranteeing that only those submitting to the conformity of consensus will ever be allowed to practice their chosen arts. The exceptions to this rule are extraordinary if you do the math. The most concrete examples are the statistics following the success of those who possess sheepskin versus those who do not … the evidence is overwhelming that if you submit to the mind numbing experience of the classroom you will be marginally better off than your peers.
I put forth that the reason for this prejudice against those who are self taught and self made is both social and political.
Beware the professionals! First there is the protectionism of the tribe of the defeated. Those who have endured the hazing of higher education do not want the doors to their private clubhouse swung wide open to the riffraff who would seek to join them if they didn’t erect the barriers of entry. They live in abject terror of having their sacred protected territory taken from them by those who merely possess extraordinary capability, skill and expertise, but lack the proper documentation. In an every widening gyre they seek to sweep to themselves a greater share of the pie they perceive to be their unique purvey to possess.
Next, you have the money these professionals gain by protecting their turf so studiously that is then poured into the political arena, e.g.: AAJ, the American Associate for Justice (formerly the Association of Trail Lawyers of America). This tribe, the AAJ, has over fifty thousand members who contribute over five million dollars a year to political campaigns in the U.S. individually, in PACs and as soft money. In addition they spend an additional 3+ million dollars lobbying politicians each year to further their professional ambitions and protections. This kind of financial juggernaut creates a political wall that’s virtually impossible to circumvent. By example while campaigning for President, Barack Obama made clear that the favored tort legislation of the AAJ would not even be a topic of discussion if he were to be elected. As a result trial attorneys remain one of the most well compensated professions in the United States, with many of the tribe becoming deca and centi millionaires. The cost to the average American, untold ..
In the United States of America, like in so many of the first world countries around the globe, the politicians are in the pockets of the wealthiest members of the societies they supposedly represent … and as a courtesy to their patrons they keep the gates of opportunity open enough to create the illusion of entry, but closed beyond that to all but the privileged few. One of the “tricks” of this crowd is to promote the c0-illusion of the “equality of education” both in terms of access to education and the myth that an education creates equality economically and socially … nothing could be further from the truth. Education creates compliance first and foremost. While this conclusion is not something I cooked up on my own, I agree with it wholeheartedly.
It takes a rare and unique individual to overcome the indoctrination of education, or to fail to be indoctrinated by education in the first place … and those who escape this fate will pay a price, like Ulysses paid for his hubris against the gods … forced sometimes for decades before they can claim a place to rest their weary bones.
The Way Out …
Despite what may so far appear to be a demoralizing tale of education there is both an upside and a way out. First the upside …
Those early years of education are actually quite crucial to become a self-directed learner (the way out by the way …). The trick is not getting caught by the system while you’re learning the essentials. Yes, you know what they are ...the three Rs, reading, writing and (a)’rithmetic. However I’d add in three more, the three Ms … movement … music … and making, in school these three become physical education, dance and sports … music … and fine and practical arts.
If you can gain the skills without losing your soul you can find the egress from education (the key is escaping formal education … not self-education, which is the key to succeeding beyond the limits the system inscribes). The treasure to be mined with these skills in found in both books (more on that in a moment) … and now via the world wide web (or the Internet if you prefer), but there’s a caveat … you must learn to “punch above your weight”
Punching above one’s weight: Meaning: Competing against someone who you are no match for. Origin: The different classes of contestants in boxing matches are distinguish by the weight of the competing boxers – heavyweight, middleweight, lightweight, flyweight etc. The sport is regulated so that only boxers of the same weight fight each other. Someone from a lighter weight wouldn’t be expected to have much chance if ‘punching above his weight’ against a heavier fighter. The term is often used figuratively in situations where someone finds themselves competing outside their usual class; for example, the Irish comedian Graham Norton described that, since becoming well-known, he was able to attract better-looking partners than previously and that he was ‘punching above my weight’ when it comes to relationships. – http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/290900.html
When it comes to self-education punching above your weight means learning to read and benefit from books and material you have no right to expect to understand. Whilst anyone can learn to do this it requires a commitment and dedication to achieve.
Recently I ran a program in California where the group asked me to teach them how to read much faster (up to three times faster in about two hours, and up to 4000 words a minute after some diligent training). However, reading faster is not the same as reading better … and it’s reading better that makes a bigger difference!
To read better you have to learn how to extract the information you encounter … AND you have to learn how to interpret the information so you can apply it yourself.
One of the keys to reading better is learning to contextualize the information. This means learning about the author of the information. learning about the audience the author intended the information for, learning abut the purpose the information was intended to serve … and learning about both the sources and the subsequent extensions of the information authored. When you know how information was developed and aimed you’ll be better able to incorporate it for yourself.
I want to share with you a seven step “Secret Code” about how to read a book and learn the most you can from it that I’ve been using for years …
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You must leave your learning about learning behind …
In order to become and succeed as a self-directed learner and independent scholar you must stop trying to impress the teacher. This is not about being about to regurgitate what you read … the standard learning protocols of memorizing the dates, names and places is irrelevant. Instead of consuming and absorbing facts and figures, focus on digesting and assimilating concepts. Put your attention on mining for ideas and finding the critical notions the author is building. The key question to ask yourself at this point is, “How is this information relevant?”
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Start with the knowledge you’re seeking to gain …
Read everything you can about the book in the book before you read the book. Read the table of contents (yes, “read” the table of contents – familiarize yourself with the chapter headings and the way the author has sequenced the material in the book before you begin reading it), read the forward and preface if they exist (these two elements of a book will outline what someone familiar with the author and their work think about what the author has written, and what the author or maybe an editor thinks about the material in the book – this will put you into the right contextual frame before you even begin accessing the content of the book), read the back cover and the inside flaps if they have copy (this is the place the author and publisher create what they think will draw in readers and what they think the book is mostly about on a practical level), read the author’s bio (this is essential contextual material to further set the frame for reading the book), and make sure to read the epilogue if there is one (this is a real trick to getting the essence of the book out of it … because you know where the book is heading before you read it, as you read it more of it will make sense to you along the way). By the time you get done doing this preliminary reading you’ll feel like the book your about to read is an old friend. -
Let others lead the way …
Before you dive into the book contents proper go and read all the reviews you can get your hands on (or that you can stand if there are just too many). You want to get a sense of what others think about the book and what it has to offer to set the proper context for you to extract the most from the book you’re about to read. Reviews … especially those with spoilers, lists and those pros and cons outlines that have become so popular in some places … are hugely helpful in gaining a sense of the material you’re about to delve into yourself. If you’re lucky you’ll come across some reviews that will compare the book you’re about to read with others in it’s genre and/or others by the same author … this will place the book in deep context for you. If you are up to it take this one step further and do an online search for the book and the author and see what you can find out about them from whatever sources show up, e.g.: Wikipedia. When you read reviews and such compare them to one another to see where the commonalities and contrasts are between the comments. Armed in this way you’ll free up enormous amounts of cognitive energy worrying about “getting it” that will become available to you to decide what you agree and disagree with yourself, parsing out the meaning from your own point of view and most significantly determining if you want to make the investment to finish it once you’ve begun it (or possibly even before that …).
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Make it your own …
In my opinion this may be the most important step of them all. WHILE YOU’RE READING A BOOK MARK IT UP! Literally put your notes about the book in the book next to the information you’ve read that inspired your own thinking. Keeping your books pristine is perfect if you’re a lending library, but as a private owner make the books you own your own … MARK THEM UP!!! If you come across something you want to get back to again fold the corner of the page … I love my dogeared books. If you see something worth remembering highlight it. If you have a way of making sense of something the author writes other than via their words feel free to write your own words next to theirs. If you are reminded of something from somewhere else put it in the margin as a reference to what you’ve just read. You’ll really feel like you own the book when you’ve contributed a substantial amount of writing to the author’s in the margins.
NOTE: FWIW I love e-book readers for this reason, e.g.: Kindle, Nook, Kobo … because they let me mark up by books with ease. I highlight, I add notes … I can source external information while I’m reading via hyperlinks and built in tools like dictionaries hearing the pronunciation of words that might be unfamiliar to me. I can even access my highlights and notes separate from the book itself with some readers, e.g.: Kindle, and if I want to print them out as a study file, I may even have the facility to share my highlights and notes with others, or engage in discussions around the book in social forums supported by the e-book technology, e.g.: Kobo VOX social reading technology. -
“Do Over!”
This one is simple and easy … but you have to make the commitment to do it. Once you’ve read the book AND MARKED IT UP go back and first re-read your highlights and notes. Then add to them as you see fit. As you’re doing that copy your notes out to a suitable medium, e.g.: index cards, a digital notebook (Evernote is my current favorite for this) … whatever, as long as you can sort the information into categories (or tag it in a digital medium to access via search later on). You want to be able to re-access your information at a moments notice later on without re-reading the entire book. If you do this diligently you’ll find that in a short period of time you’ll have a true scholars cabinet of notes you can use for any number of purposes, e.g.: research, writing, preparing for a speech … refreshing your memory while your reading another book … winning arguments … . Finally, after about three weeks of letting the book sit, re-read it quickly again, even just scanning it and allowing yourself the freedom to only read word for word those sections that catch your attention. After you do this the contents of the book will be yours to keep.
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Extending the journey …
Here’s where it begins to get really interesting …
After you finish the book that was “above your punching weight” when you began you’ll be ready to read another book or two of the same, or even a higher level, within that category. This is a “trick” that every serious independent learner I know uses. They literally use the first book in a category to prepare themselves for further reading, research and study. Depending on their intention, e.g.: familiarity with a topic or mastery of the topic, they take the journey as far as they need/want to … but I don’t know anyone, including yours truly, who stops at the first book and leaves it there if they care about the topic at all. Most independent scholars I know and virtually every expert I can think of, buy many, many books within a topical area of interest, often all at the same time, amassing a large collection of books that will give them a depth of knowledge almost equal to the authors who wrote the books they’re reading. However, I’ll keep it simple … make a commitment to read at least one additional book the author recommends or uses as a primary source (they will share this information in their bibliography, and sometimes in the text as well).
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OUTPUT!!!
Okay, now you’ve done the requisite homework and you’re ready to step beyond the learning phase to the action phase. Find some way to apply the material from the books you read as soon as possible after you read them. If you can use the material personally or professionally do that, if you can join in a conversation or dialogue about the material do that, if you can write about the book and what you got from it do that (you can always write a review in one of the online bookstores or review sites), if you want write a blog post about the book and it’s contents.Regardless of how you take the words from the page and make them real find a way … do something applied with the contents beyond “having read the book” and you’ll be building one of the most powerful habits you can possibly have as an independent learner and scholar. The purpose of all this work you’ve put in is for you to have a better life … the real magic is becoming truly free of the habituated idea that you have to learn from teachers or experts … and making the information practical, pragmatic and/or applicable in your life will make it all worthwhile.
When you’ve taken your first book and applied these seven steps of the “Secret Code” I’ve outlined above you’ll never be outclassed or out punched when it comes to learning again …
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, New Jersey
Susan says
Especially enjoyed this post and learned alot. An avid reader myself, I will do even more now with my books! Thanks.
Joseph says
Susan … my pleasure, ENJOY!
Thomas says
Good to see you writing again. Since your last post I’ve read your book, as well as Randy Greens book, Decisions decisions. I have one saved to my favorites that I plan on ordering soon. The book I haven’t ordered yet is mostly about stories but what attracted me was the writing style.
Yes, I would agree with your consensus about how best to approach a book. I’ve been doing it that way for years, with a few exceptions that is. I prefer the ideals or concepts over and above data. Data to me is dry and mostly meaningless dribble. I had a best friend who was into that data consumption. A straight A student at that, who I used to joke with about his way of spewing forth information. I told him once that he should go on some game shows with all that useless shit floating around in his head.
I mean he could tell you babe ruths stats, but for me I was more into wanting to know what it must have felt like and what thoughts if any were going through his head. Say for example he was standing there bottom of the 9th, 2 strikes, 1 ball, bases loaded, with the winning run on first. Now that fascinates me, always has. lol
Joseph says
Thomas … “… I was more into wanting to know what it must have felt like and what thoughts if any were going through his head.” … ME TOO!
The process of reading books to get what was in the author’s head at the time they wrote it falls into the domain of hermeneutics, and I often think (mostly privately …) that my work is a form of applied hermeneutics.
In my case I’m working with live data, or more accurately data that’s emergent in a live interaction. This data is communicated in multiple sensory forms, e.g.: visual, auditory … and with multiple content forms as well, e.g.: words, tone,gesture, expression, etc. The totality of the emergent data communicated in live interaction I refer to as “behavioral communication” (including the language forms used, especially attending to metaphoric form in my utilization of it).
Within the context of behavioral communication the key is hermeneutically interpreting the data being communicated, meaning interpreting it relative to the communicator. Specifically, this requires the facilitator who is acting as the data collector and interpreter, to account for the full context of the communication, for instance:
That’s some of what I’m tracking for when I’m working.
There are some of the factors to be considered when interpreting live dialogic communication hermeneutically. It’s also significant to remember that the communication being interpreted is not limited to just the language at the level of content as you would if you were reading a transcription of the communication and applying hermeneutic interpretation to it. There is also all of the contextual information as I’ve pointed out, e.g.: tone, expression, gesture … proximetric data, timing, etc. I’m also considering the language forms in terms of syntax and pragmatics as well, in addition to dealing with colloquialisms and metaphor. So it’s a bunch of stuff going on …
BUT … if you can get there you can know a lot about what’s going on in someone else’s head, and with some additional skill how to reform how they do what they’re doing with the data too.
Michael David a.k.a says
Very interesting article, yet again!
Especially the remark about having the approriate paperwork/qualifications et cetera, to verify & prove that you know what your taking about?
I consider myself an authority and expert on the whole subject of weightloss. Not because I did a course or whatever but because I’ve casually researched it over the last 20 years and been aware of the issue. I’ve learned from people who are experts in this area… who train olympic athletes and are results orientated. The information and insight I have, isn’t common knowledge. Yet because I don’t have a qualification, I’m not seen as on a level par with someone who has. Thou, I can prove what I know and am currently writing a book.
On the subject of encyclopedias. I remember my parents having them when I was a child. You just brought that forgotten memory back to me!
Thanks
Joseph says
Michael … welcome.
The expert conundrum isn’t necessarily new. In the Old Testament it’s stated that only the “Cohens” (priest class) could pass the veil surrounding the Ark of the Covenant (this is 3000+ years ago). The “priest” class was also well established in virtually every other society as well … Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, Japan, Native American … you pick. There is a standing tradition of elder/chief/monarch … in many cultures probably going back 10,000+ years of human history. In the Renaissance there was a strong Guild movement that “qualified” people via an apprentice/journeyman/master continuum. The East has this model of apprentice/master in place as well.
In the modern era we have further extended this “privileged class” model based on the concept of licensing associated with specific, extended education. This “class” distinction is monitored and controlled by the political establishment now, in conjunction with those that are served by, i.e.: the licensees.
The best exposition of this re: the modern era may be Foucault’s “The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception” (and “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”)
The simplest way to consider this may be through Foucault’s concept of privileged perception. The challenge is when those that possess a particular “privileged perception” claim that it is the “only valid perception,” e.g.: in the United States the AMA. This is a direct result of logical positivism, but that’s a theme for another post.
Jeffrey Leiken says
Just last night I was ranting (actually doing a piece of work in the form of a rant) to a 22 year old client of mine about the impact his amazing education has had on him… 22 years old and he can’t get himself to take action without someone telling him what to do and when to have it done by… thoroughly initiated, indoctrinated and virtually incapacitated by his schooling.
I will send him this link as a good follow up to last night’s talk.
I’ll also tell him when I expect it read by and when I expect the report… 😉
Cheers,
Jeff Leiken
San Francisco, CA
PS Joe, when is your book coming out in print form?
Joseph says
Jeff … go for it!
As far as I know it’s all done … so June. As soon as we’re there I’ll make an announcement!
Dagfinn Reiersøl says
Hi Joseph, that’s a lot like my life story, at least as far as education is concerned. My father, though, was a brilliant mathematician and I spent an enormous amount of time and effort trying to not be like him.
Joseph says
Dagfinn … hahahahaha …
Like I said big cost, but big reward.
I did some work in front of the room with someone in the recent “Our Stories, Our Lives” program in Denmark this month (May 2012) about their Life Story, and the “death of the Father/Mother” … in terms of the significance/necessity of “killing the parent/s” in order to become free and independent.
FWIW most people never get to this until the literally death of the parent/s, so they themselves are 50, 60, 70+ before they themselves become free of the parent/s and independent, if at all. The greater challenge is they pass this “disease” onto the child (their own children, and in the case of teachers the children of others). This is one of the primary roles of “the State” in forming society/civilization as we know it/think about it. The “State” becomes the pseudo-parent extending the dependence formed by necessity in childhood, and keeping the individual locked in perpetual childhood, adolescence.
If you attend to the state sanctioned entertainment (by virtue of condoning and collusion) you’ll see that the appeal is to the child/adolescent in all forms. Even the “toys” presented to adults are the artifacts of the child/adolescent. The markers of achievement that are most acknowledged as status markers are also those of the child/adolescent, e.g.: “He/She who dies with the most toys wins.”
Essentially what I presented in the program (“Our Stories, Our Lives”) was exemplified in terms of story by the Disney approach of starting every story with “the orphan” … the lose of the father/mother, which pushes the child towards finding themselves independent of the parent. This is the exploration of self apart from the parent/s.
Ham says
This post was a wonderful welcome home after a looong, amazing Sunday with the kids. Thank you, I’m beaming.
Libraries are my favourite place in the world and wherever I am, I am always thrilled when I discover one. The tiny English section in Kamakura library was an oasis in a country where I was suddenly illiterate; I discovered Murakami there and my life changed beautifully. The library in the small regional city where my nineteen year old is studying, I spent every day for a year with her in the library, meeting there between classes, some of the best days of my life, falling in love with her all over again. And the books! Gosh, the books. And the state library in Melbourne… a stunning building, I read Gazzaniga as an Australian summer streamed through the glass roof… and I was illuminated.
I consumed so many books as a kid, going to the school library constantly and the town library on the weekends, absorbing *worlds* of information and stories upon stories. The Phantom Tollbooth and Roald Dahl two of my favourites for sure. I couldn’t believe the vast array of subjects available! Architecture, history, art, computer science, mathematics, philosophy! So many books to indulge in! Well into my adulthood, I visited that same library in my home town, each time felt like coming home…
Yesterday we chanced upon an impromptu book fair, my young’uns and I. My daughter, now eight and just about as perfect as perfect can be – she’s always been that way, funny huh? 🙂 – she asked for a book and I encouraged her to buy a couple. She picked Roald Dahl, which pretty much made my day. Well, that and her starting karate class last week: awesome.
Aah, education. One of the principal fascinations and driving forces in my life for the last something-or-other years. A long time ago in a former Empire, I gave up a lucrative career and became a Montessori teacher, enamoured, indeed exhilarated as I was with her melding of a formal scientific perspective and her spiritual vision of individual and universal holism, balance within and without, all with a Catholic/Vedantic mystical flavour – truly mind bending stuff! I got to take my youngest daughter to school with me everyday in that Steiner/Montessori/Reggio kindergarten in Japan, a blessing beyond measure, to move and sing and read and dance and adore her with all my heart and more. Never away from her, never sending her off to daycare or the like. I was extremely privileged and I am eternally grateful for those magical moments. The idea of sitting her at a desk and studying for meaningless exams horrifies me and yet so many parents do this, without even thinking about it. It might be a genuine lack of knowledge, it might be indoctrination of fitting in, or something entirely different, I do not know.
There is something inside us, each one of us, that we do not need to impose upon, that is simply present if we merely take the time to take the time. All it needs is the space and the nourishment to grow, the resources and the wisdom of loved ones. We must let children follow their fascinations, uninterrupted, free to be all that they can be. Life is so simple then. I pondered this on the e-list I think, years ago: what is it that enables children to make the decisions they make about what to do next, what to play next? What is that? I caught glimpses of it whilst in Japan. I am glad that you mentioned the essentials, I agree wholeheartedly with your three additions, and it’s vital to get those fundamentals into our skin, our bones, our flesh, to really get a felt sense of our becoming. The standardised methodologies of teaching and testing are utterly outmoded. If we can nurture a system of learning, with greatly passionate and experienced mentors pointing out the way, what incredible feats we can achieve. I said to you ten years ago that I think you’ve uncovered the structure of dharma, and whatever it is that you have actually done, I can only imagine the gratitude and humility you feel towards Roye.
Years before he was famous, Eddie Van Halen said that he saw Jimmy Page on stage doing some legato thing with his left hand whilst he saluted the crowd with his right. A bright-eyed young kid, young Eddie thought to himself “Hmmm… if I just put my right hand on the guitar neck also maybe that’ll sound interesting.” A thus a legend was born. Leaving room for happy accidents is also a good thing.
Fantastic post… I hope Denmark was inspiring and thanks for everything and then some.
Joseph says
Ham … great post, I’ll leave it there.
(P.S.: Take a look at my reply above, I think you’ll find it interesting as well.)
Mark Roche says
Thanks Joseph. I also found this post especially useful.
Joseph says
Mark … thanks.
Shazy says
Good post, but how do you actually remember and ‘retain’ all the information you read???
Joseph says
Shazy … I don’t. I remember selectively, like every other person on the planet.
What helps me to remember what I do is that I go into these learning situations with a clear frame in place that I allow to remain open ended so I can adapt and adjust as the information becomes present.
As the frame evolves it contains what there is to be received and retained. The subsequent times through the material the frame continues to adapt and adjust, in large part because I am no longer the same as I was the time before when I met it last. In this way the material actually becomes different for me each time I engage it.
The key to long term retention and learning is accumulation, i.e.: the more I’ve learned the larger the framework I have to learn within. It’s much easier to learn within an existing framework than to build new framework. So learning accumulated and accelerates in tandem … it’s like Moore’s Law of computing, a kind of doubling effect, the more people know the more they learn.
Shazy says
p.s. Joseph i have an ideoa for you , for a new product.
Why not do a teleseminar series where you share your ‘secrets’ for reading and retaining information?
What do you think about this idea???
Joseph says
Shazy … sure, what do you recommend in terms of time (number of sessions and length of each session) and price??? I’m curious what would make it “Drop dead, gotta be there!” for you.
Dr Josef Karthauser says
Hey Joseph,
WRT “professionals” have you seen Clay Shirky’s talk on Institutions vs Collaboratoon. He gives a nice demonstration of why institutions protect themselves and why they can’t cater to the long tail, in terms of the 80/20 rule. Very nice 🙂
Its clear in this context why trail blazers will always have to work outside of established quangos and professional bodies. (at least until Seth Godin gets his dream come true!)
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html
Joseph says
Joe … good stuff, akin to my Foucault comments above (or better said, Foucault’s comments that I point to above).
Sarah Lawrence Hinson says
At least 3 laughs during this article. Thank you!
I road my bike to the local library from age 10-13 and had read just about every book in it by the time I was 13 including some of Gloria Steinem’s books, all of Ray Bradbury’s and several romantic series which were educational but probably unsuitable. So I went to the next biggest town and read that library too.
Several years of commuting to London saw that I spent the commute reading (avg 7 books a week). My oldest daughter has inherited this desire for input and has a tower of Pisa of books by her bedside at any one time. Sometimes she’ll read an entire book on the relatively short drive from the library to our house.
LOL number 1 “I was taught and learned to be a consumer of information (a practice that I continue, sometimes feverishly, through today). That all came to a screeching halt for me as I attempted to “do” college. The insistence that I spend another four plus years consuming more information was beyond me.” Beyond me, too. Went to London and got a job at the BBC instead. Learned loads hopping from job to job.
LOL number 2 “In the United States of America, like in so many of the first world countries around the globe, the politicians are in the pockets of the wealthiest members of the societies they supposedly represent … and as a courtesy to their patrons they keep the gates of opportunity open enough to create the illusion of entry, but closed beyond that to all but the privileged few.” Indeed. The spiritual road and the study of energy work is teaching me the mechanics of human illusion, how to identify it. Working on circumvention at this stage…
LOL number 3 “One of the “tricks” of this crowd is to promote the c0-illusion of the “equality of education” both in terms of access to education and the myth that an education creates equality economically and socially … nothing could be further from the truth. Education creates compliance first and foremost.”.
Well, LOL 2 and 3 might be the wrong way around, but who cares, I wasn’t completely eddicated anyway.
Still working on my education. Luckily for me co-running a business in the UK filled in a lot of gaps and introduced me to new learning technologies which could be applied in the workplace (NLP, Accelerated Learning, Brain Gym and Brain Dominance profiling). The world has not been the same since, thank g-d and thanks to my fearless business partner at the time. Great post Joseph. Will be sharing and your writing will as always be inspiring more writing and reading…
Sarah
A Mom On A Spiritual Journey!
Joseph says
Sarah … it’s a common enough story at the start … it’s the way that it ends that matters most … however the only way to get to the end is to go through the middle.
Sarah Lawrence Hinson says
PS. And I LOVE Graham Norton!
Joseph says
‘;~>
Mark Roche says
Similar to Shazy’s question: as well as how you remember and retain all the information, is how you organize and sort it. You have such an immensely vast book knowledge and yet seem so remarkably well balanced and integrated and visceral rather than over mental which might ordinarily have been the case with all that you have inputed. Would love to have a better sense of how you seem to so internally balance and integrate the material that might otherwise just have been a vast compendium of disparate bits of information.
Joseph says
Mark … like you’ve pointed out I do it through the body experience.
Rather than intellectualize information (the most common approach to information consumption) I embody it. The way I do this is to absorb it, assimilate it and then output it … I put it into practice as soon, and as much, as I can after encountering it.
Information that is gathered and stored rots and festers into something other than what it would/could be if it’s applied. IMO information that is intellectualized becomes putrid, a corruption. Only when information is re-externalized does it become integrated.
For example imagine studying herbalism. Let’s speak to just two aspects of the potential study, 1) the study of the plants/fungi in nature, e.g.: finding and identifying them, and 2) application of the plants/fungi, e.g.: using them nutritionally and/or medicinally.
Accumulating the book knowledge is one thing, maybe exemplified by passing the test in the classroom. However, only when the experience is taken to the field and put into practice does the practitioner become truly skillful and masterful as an herbalist. I would never trust someone who has only studied the material and mastered it in the classroom or laboratory to apply it to me/for me.
Mark Roche says
Thanks Joseph.
Joseph says
Mark … welcome.
Leo says
re: Foucault… towards the end of his life, he also wrote on ways to exist “freely” in social structures and norms that are set up to control individuals. Turn yourself into a work of art. Establish your own relation to the knowledge you gather and claim your own power, not one bestowed upon you based on norms that are given to you. “Ethics of the Care of the self as a practice of freedom” was what he called it, if I remember correctly. Great stuff.
Joseph says
Leo … as you say great stuff.
FWIW it’s the same kind of idea that I continuously propose in my comments about living from an aesthetic framework.
I’ve said many times that my models (the MythoSelf Process and SomaSemantics) are aesthetically organized. By this I mean that they are not organized logically or rationally, which is not the same as being illogical or irrational either.
The models I work with are also not psychologically organized, they are if anything more philosophically organized, but most of all they are aesthetically organized. I never realized how much I was aligned with Foucault actually `;~>
Andy Iskandar says
Hey Joseph,
I was only recently introduced to you and your work here (via Yanik Silver I think). And I must say I like what I see and read. You have a perspective and a way of putting things that I love.
I must admit, I’ve been a lurker on your blog thus far but this blog post of yours moved me so much that I decided to make my inaugural comment. 😀
I can really identify with what you wrote. For as far back as I can remember, I have been extremely comfortable with the “system”, especially the “education system”. Where I come from (Singapore), everything is so organised, regimented, and planned. It makes for a brilliant infrastructure system but in terms of “education”, I really felt constrained, suffocated even.
I like to read, and I too have fond memories of having encyclopedias at home. Like you, that’s one of the things I will forever remember about my mother. We were a lower middle-class family so encyclopedias were somewhat out of our budget. But my mother scraped and borrowed just so that she can buy me those encyclopedias. I am eternally grateful to her for that.
Reading, or more precisely discovering, was and still is a pure joy for me. And the thing about the “education system” I grew up in, everything was about rote learning. As a result, most of my peers hardly read anything else that wasn’t required by school. So even as a young boy, I felt that there is something wrong with the system.
In fact, I felt that way about the society we live in as a whole. Everybody is so occupied with the paper chase. I let myself get caught up in it all the way until university where I majored in Physics. There, I couldn’t take it any more. They were really taking the joy out of learning. So I left and did my own thing. I am an entrepreneur now but most of all, I am a learner… a discoverer.
There are so many secrets the world, the universe has to offer and I love reading about them. People in history who are well-read and multi-disciplined are my role models. My overall aim for myself is to be one.
And your blog, for one, is helping me with this. I’ve got to admit that your writing is sometimes “above my punching weight”. So I guess I’m on the right path. So thank you for that.
I have 2 questions:
1. Well this is sort of two questions in one. I’m curious, where did you earn your doctorate, and, given your view of the education system, why did you even bother with a doctorate?
2. In one of the comments above, you wrote –
“If you attend to the state sanctioned entertainment (by virtue of condoning and collusion) you’ll see that the appeal is to the child/adolescent in all forms. Even the “toys” presented to adults are the artifacts of the child/adolescent.”
Any plans on writing an article expanding on this?
Thanks Joseph for what you do…
Best,
Andy
Joseph says
Andy … thanks for breaking your silence!
I did my doctorate in the most non-traditional way possible. I did it in an international program designed for adult learners. I had to first convince them that my educational background was equivalent to a master’s level, and I did that by having it certified by a third-party and submitted that document to them as “proof.”
I excelled in the program because it was largely organized on a European “seminar” style system and much of it was based in demonstrating the knowledge dialogically in class. The rest of the classwork was primarily research based with the output in the form of reports.
The primary requirement however was the production of the doctoral dissertation and it’s defense. The research and data collection spanned five years, and I completed the writing in about 48 hours (160+ typed pages).
The “why” of it is simple, cause I wanted to do it. I like research, the project was exciting for me to engage in and at that stage in my life I was ready to jump through those particular hoops, because I was skillful to stack the deck in my favor.
Regarding an article … who knows … we’ll just have to wait and see!
Mike says
Hermeneutics, eh? I can only agree, and point to the “etymology” section of the wikipedia article on hermeneutics: the role of Hermes as the trickster god: “Besides being mediator between the gods themselves, and between the gods and humanity, he leads souls to the underworld upon death. He is also considered the inventor of language and speech, an interpreter, a liar, a thief and a trickster”
Joseph says
Mike … gotta luv him, eh???
Andy Iskandar says
Apologies, need to make a correction…
I wrote:
“For as far back as I can remember, I have been extremely comfortable with the “system”, especially the “education system”. ”
It’s supposed to be ‘uncomfortable’, not ‘comfortable’.
Joseph says
Andy … got it.