Monday, 23 May 2016

Edward’s Diary Entry 54 – Virtue 7. Studiousness / What to do about ignorance?

Lack of cultivation, No interest in learning or studying, unjustified self-assuredness, laziness, lack of interest in the history of your species…

For the Instinctual type (although deranged by society, there are people who understand the world more through moving and acting and by sheer heart rather than feeling or thought), or for the Emotional type (pulsating with sentiment but lacking somewhat in action and thought), STUDY is difficult. For the Thinker, STUDY should probably be curtailed, as these types will suffocate themselves in studying and more studying, and neither feel nor act or do anything; they just intellectualise all the time.

But our modern-day conception of “study” is also a little exaggerated. Yes, we need information – all too true since neither parents nor society will usually give us true information, but only their own points of view. And yes, we need experience from the past – it certainly can’t come from the future! Yes, we need reference works and the opinions of our ancients and our elders, from the knowledgeable. But we don’t need that much information anymore. What we need is information about information: where to get it, how to get it, and what to do with it. And we need 21st-century information, not outdated 19th-C theories projected into the present. We need the bare facts about human life on this planet. We need intelligent, provocative science, not dry repetitions of the world through human eyes and foregone conclusions – that’s not the real world! We need to study bare essentials, and start from scratch again, from ground zero. Question everything, and keep on questioning. We need to study ignorance.

We have to find information on HOW to be studious and combat ignorance, because with all our studying at schools and universities since 1088 (University of Bologna) or 1096 (Oxford), or 1134  (Salamanca), we have forged the modern world – with many advantages, true, but with so many problems: population, famine, water, obesity, pollution, violence, military spending, wars, forest loss, land loss, CO2 emissions, desertification, toxic chemicals,  government deficits, etc. If you, as one of the 7.4 billion human beings on the planet don’t start correcting this, who will? If you leave it to Mother (Nature), don’t worry, she’ll correct it, but lots of people, maybe including you, aren’t going to like her solution! She may start getting rid of the culprit, and the culprit is called “All of Us”. Even elementary civics says “ignorance of the law is no excuse”. And ignorance of world and natural laws is no excuse either. We will be tried and found guilty by Nature if we don’t solve the problem of an inherited, inefficient human mind that destroys the planet due to ignorance.

Step 1. Pinpoint the problem. If you don’t already know it’s your MIND that’s the problem, keep trying other things like blaming others, your parents, your childhood traumas, the government, capitalists, communists, other religions, circumstances, destiny, God, aliens from outer space… until you die:  Then your problem is solved by Nature. You cease to exist. And in a world that is ecological and sustainable – today’s corporate catchwords – “your mind” is recycled. The thinking and feeling “you” that you consider yourself to be has only one chance in this life, no more.

Step 2. Plan for correction. If you do realise your own MIND is the only culprit, find out how to correct it and lay out a plan, a philosophy, a way out of the jungle. Watch out for dependence on belief systems, dogmas, teachings, gurus, father-figures…These only work or help if they allow you to work or help yourself.

Step 3. Apply measures. Once you’ve decided on the Plan, apply your measures and learn on your own. Only you can do this. No one else can.

Step 4. Persevere. Despite difficulties, problems, setbacks, lack of progress, ennui, just keep going. We’re fighting against years, perhaps decades, of wrong thinking, wrong acting, uninterpreted sense perceptions, past habits and behaviour patterns. So we have a long way to go. The only thing we can do is continue, doubt, study, learn, persevere, cultivate true Intellect, seek Enlightenment.

Pretended smartness is ignorance. Recognise ignorance and you start getting smarter.

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