I'm tired of reading articles; I want to get back into textbooks.

I miss the comprehensiveness of school. They pick a topic, like let's say "American Modernism," and then they nail it. Over 10-16 weeks you experience all the authors, music, films, histories and perspectives of that topic. The course is then capped with an essay-writing assignment to complete the learning process.

In a way, school was a weapon against memetic-calcification. In memetic-calcification, memes languish for too long in your head, something that too easily happens post-college. After school, you only click and read whatever's convenient. You remain glued to your favorite TV channels and magazines. Even your "educational" sources, like the History Channel or The New Yorker, are snippets and summaries contributing to mere cocktail party wit.

I miss learning things that I never initially wanted. Maybe I should segment my year into quarters and follow college syllabi. Replace all the time spent surfing TV or the Internet or whatever intellectual vice--we all have one--with a focus on this quarter's reading.

Seriously, all the hundreds of essays I've read on Kerry v. Bush are useless compared to rich historical perspective:

The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II: both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their countries’ budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks. (from The American Conservative endorses Kerry)

See, that's the kind of knowledge I want.

Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene, appearing on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: "Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." And Chaucer complained "the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."

This comes from Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years, an article that whacks at the phenom of rush-job programming books. Check the site out as it also contains good points that are generalizable to other fields.

colophon: I'm finding links now by reading blogdex's 4th page which mostly contains junk, but every now and then yields hidden gems.

Why do they always talk about "surviving school"? Since when did school become something detrimental enough to make survival questionable?

and should we even participate in activities that require survival?

sure, there are those that don't have much food to eat, and they fight for survival everyday.

but those of us that have inherited the wonders of modern american abundance, are life-threats necessary?

do we stay up late studying and crap just because it feels more comfortable?

or are we just stupid? Just how much brain is necessary to make an honest living? I mean seriously.

There are trillions of dollars being exchanged, everybody is a walking vault of at least $30 cash on them,... millions of ppl are surfing the internet with $250 in their paypal accounts, just waiting to give it around.

And you tell me you need a 4-year, $135,000 program to teach you how to tap into that?

That's what happens under fear.

irrationality.

it's what our government is carefully doing today.

Karl Rove & Co., couldn't be more happier with these multi-colored terror threats.

at first, after 9/11, I was genuinely scared.

but then the pattern of the media hype on terrorism and stuff just looked too planned, to well thoughtout.

it perfectly coincided with things like the Iraqi war or the Republican putsch.

fear leads to irrationality leads to external control

as soon as you cease to be rational, you lose your claim to free will.

But how does one stick out, how does one be that rock solid island of free independent thought.

baby, this is not an abstract ideal, you can't just meditate a calm journey through the bustling ocean that is your surroundings

check your environment. So much of how your mind grows is shaped by the context that you're in. If you're surrounded by people and programs, you're bound to only see yourself through the lens of your box.

you have to unchain yourself once in a while, take a retreat and do what they say, "find yourself"

and/or you need to abandon your environment or seek a multiplicity of freely chosen environments. How much of what you do is dependent on needs established before you chose to agree or disagree?

Money's important, mariage is important, school is necessary for a good existence, a large house, good car... these things have become "standard" even before we have begun to taste the real standards... nature... true love.... projects we have passion for... compassion for the needy.

Alas, it doesn't matter, my words don't matter in the end.

It's evolution.

We, as individual homo sapiens are fighting for our personal evolution just as much as other layers are fighting for their own space.

the virii in our body are fighting for their existence all the time--despite advances in medicine.

likewise, virii of the mind, such as religion.... also take their place.

just as do metropolii, organizations, capitalistic societies, socialistic dogma, etc...

so why not just give up? let this process go unchecked?

because they, this non-you, does not matter....

you are all that matters. As solipsistic as it sounds, none of these things exist without you.

With you, with your feelings, with your principles, with your ideas you should guide your actions...

I think this is the Existentialist mantra, and I think rejecting so would be an inauthentic and error-prone life.

In studying art and becoming a good artist, an important tool is being able to focus in on negative space. Negative space is the space outside of that which is active or positive. For example in the following character "0" there is the black, outlined circle, the positive space. The negative space would be the solid white interior of the circle.

Now, couldn't this negative space reasoning be applied to education as well. Couldn't you learn a lot from the things you don't know or aren't learning? Aren't there insights to be gained from the holes of knowledge you have? Sure, creativity, intuition, shortcuts, etc. Moreover, this relates to me leaving school. Not being in school has educated me so much about myself. The tension created in me and around me by prematurely ending my studies has taught me so much about my values and the value of school. A more clearer vision about my motivations, about school's value to me, and the value of an undergraduate degree on others has become more apparent to me by leaving school then by being at school.

Sometimes the greatest insights come from pause, and not action. From closing your eyes rather than from looking. From becoming nothing rather than otherwise.

Design the best educational system? Idealistic me says, "give them one book." Which book? The Bible? Eh, too archaic. The Gay Science? Too Western. Sophie's World? Okay, we're getting better because it sparks further thought.

I think you can wrap up 98% of the education a child needs into one book. It's a book on great quotations that I found at a used book store. This tome is dense. It's about 1000 pages and is sorted by topic. Such as freedom, religion, love, war, and art. You flip through, looking for a particular concept, and bam, there's the best matured answers to all questions of gravity. You read a quote, pause, paradigm shift, and bam, you've short-cutted like 20 years of time wasted going to school or getting rug burns to figure this stuff out. Sure sure, there's things in life you want to figure out on your own. So skip the love section. There's a lot of stupidity and arrogance that would be worth bypassing in life.

Great Examples:

"Knowledge and human power are synonymous" - Francis Bacon.

"In America the president reigns for four years, and journalism governs for ever and ever" - Oscar Wilde.

"I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." - Winston Churchill

A simple quote says it all, a compendium of man's greatest quotes speaks volumes.