Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ken Leung
And, How come no one ever taught me:
How to learn the right way?
How to ask the right questions?
How to look for the bigger picture?
How to maintain my innocence and fascination as I grow up?
How to learn to think?
P.S. By the way, I am very eager to find out what kind of questions you are asking yourself, so feel free to share them with the rest of us!
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One thing I’ve learned in life is that I don’t want to know everything. I like watching magicians perform, and while I know they are just doing tricks, I have no desire to learn how they do them because then I would probably be jaded and say things like “There’s a trap door under the hat…” and lose the enjoyment of the show.
There have been people in your life who have been teaching you how to learn, and ask questions, look at the bigger picture, and how to think, but most people can only teach you the way they do it, which may not be the “right” way for you. What is right, anyhow?
As for maintaining innocence and fascination, I don’t think it’s something that can be actively taught. And I also don’t think anyone can maintain the pure innocence of a young child. But fascination never has to be lost. I remember once, exclaiming over a shooting star, and a friend pointing out that a shooting star is really a meteoroid--a fragment of an asteroid or a comet, made up of iron, silicates or a mixture of both and that when the asteroid or comet is shattered by an explosion in space, meteoroids are propelled through the earth's atmosphere, creating friction, which heats up the "shooting star" and gives it the glow we see. He gave me science where once was magic, and in a sense took some of my innocence away, but I didn’t lose my fascination (and I still make wishes on “shooting stars”).
I don’t think I maintain my fascination of life by looking at the bigger picture, I think I maintain it by looking at the smaller details and how they come to make the bigger picture. On the way to IRI and back, I enjoyed watching the world zoom by, often catching glimpses of wonderful, fascinating things… had I been a child, I would have been pointing them out and “oohing and ahhing” over all I saw… But I have to admit, I was too embarrassed to do so as an adult. I didn’t want the rest of the people in the van to laugh at me and think me silly, so I stayed quiet (except for one time when I saw this giant hawk, wow!). I think the more you care about what other people think of you, the less freedom you have to actually be yourself.
The biggest question I’ve been asking myself lately is “What in the Hades are you doing?” since I’m quitting my job to go back to school. But I know the answer to that one, I’m following a dream I thought I lost the first time around.
Heidi