Self Education: For A Cheerful And Healthy Mind

Though mighty, we are very delicate creatures,

our minds require Beauty and Calm to learn the most at their best.

Haste of organized education, threats of losing a 4.0 GPA,

homework deadlines, and even subconsciously knowing that memorization is not education, will conspire against us.

Learning for real, real education, useful knowledge,

thriving wisdom, and eventual greatness demands a beautiful and authentic existence.

In real life, getting a diploma by cramming, memorizing, winging it or getting lucky,

doesn't actually do anything.

Reality, demands real things,

truth, authenticity, and a healthy existence.

A beautiful life,

requires our full beauty.

To bloom, to truly grow up,

we need to be truly free, we need to reside in the real world.

It is not as easy as it sounds,

though we all have the ability to set ourselves free from childhood indoctrination.

What about, the less obvious things?

Such as doing badly on a test some years ago, having your GPA permanently lowered because of it,

but on the day of graduation, actually being able to perfectly pass that test, but now during graduation it being too late.

So you are accepting a lower GPA, so that you can graduate sooner?

that is not how reality works, and what about the extra motivation that you would receive from keeping a 4.0 GPA throughout your entire stay?

And what about the quality of that test,

and what about the people that passed it because they memorized it without really learning anything?

And what about the fact that that many will never need what was on that test,

in effect the College or University slowing their progress down, distracting them from learning what would help them become more of themselves.

And what about well connected and ingratiated liars, at the company you do end up working at,

what if after years of tests and textbooks and frightening and stressful debt, a liar dislikes you?

Reality, will make you strong and beautiful, it will make your life meaningful and full of joy,

but you have to keep it real, the education must be real, your place of employment must be stable and honest.

At no point should you be pushed to the side,

and forced to walk a path that is different from who you are.

And do not forget, that we are granted a set amount of time,

spending more than 30 years in pursuit of school and career that isn't guaranteed to be what you need, should be a tough proposition.

Now, a real education coupled with a series of business undertakings that you learn from,

and eventual launch of a successful company based on what you have learned is a lot more stable.

So, High School, College, University and a Career,

does not hold the same guarantee that Self Education and eventually becoming a Successful Founder, does.

If you start leaning towards the Start-up Culture in High School,

you can start building your companies a lot sooner, and begin isolating and mastering the lessons that you actually need in the right sequence and at the right pace.

Just for the fact that there are no bullies when you learn on your own,

and zero pressure to memorize, and zero classes that will only distract you from learning what you need, self education is better for your mental health and growing up.

Cults and religions are not the only indoctrination,

they are just the ones that are trivial to catch.

A Real University, would only feature Great Thinkers, Great Actors and Narrators,

but even so, their beautiful performances, though eye catching, would never be as perfectly fitted to you as a series of fine hand-picked audio books.

Even an imaginary perfect-university, cannot match the power of a collection of audio books that you can listen and re-listen stress free,

as you learn to build you companies and graduate to be able to grasp more and more complex subjects.

Lets just face it, being placed in a situation where you must merely memorize things,

is a sign that you are being taken advantage of.

Learning is not about memorization,

and memorization has nothing to do with learning.

Memorization is best used in poetry,

it a way to give thanks to poets.

Even if you memorize numbers of a new language,

all you have left is a piece of information that is not yet useful.

Memorizing 100 of the most popular words in a language you are learning,

is almost dangerous as you will have trouble with correct pronunciation.

To learn a new language, you are best to create a path you can navigate and expand,

watch a movie you are already familiar with in your native language, and build a transcript.

We are good at language,

just like we are good at dance, don't force it, love it.

Your Knowledge is sacred,

it empowers your decision making, and helps your dreams come true.

When someone barges in forcing you to heartlessly memorize things,

you must become very suspicious of their motives.

The world is poor, there are slick talking people out there with all kinds of issues,

sometimes they are deans, principals, teachers, and even parents.

You have to find a way to learn things right,

I think we all know, that way, is not the school way.

I know you are scared, bad grades, yelling parents, threat of poverty and homelessness,

but you see, that won't go away when you graduate by cramming, you are only delaying it.

Moreover, by not becoming educated as soon as you can,

you become vulnerable to slick talking attackers, and shitty boyfriends.

It is damn hard to catch a liar, so hard that we can almost assume that liars always do win,

it is because in their sickens they learn to exploit our cognitive biases.

The way to push back against manipulators,

is to become smarter than they are, and believe you me, this barely takes any effort at all.

At most, AT MOST, 25 five audio books about modern life,

though they must all have a positive ending, they have to be happy books.

25 audio books is like a month of your life,

and, and, and if I may, it will be one of the most beautiful times of your life.

You will always return to where you were as you read them,

so you better go to a nice place, or get in your car get on the longest highway and drive.

You can either start your life with a heart break,

or with adventure and audio books.

Grab your friends, tell them to behave,

and go together.

If I may make a suggestion, lease stop at every antique store,

as neat as the knickknacks are going to be, look for the most worn out books.

I found a saintly copy of Robinson Crusoe,

it fits in my back pocket so perfectly, I can't even.

Look for Jack London, Herman Melville, Daniel Defoe,

and keep an eye out for works by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Use the paper versions to practice narration, but listen to the audio books,

they are often out on Librivox.org for free as most of the classics are in public domain.

That is all you need, to create an adventure,

a path to somewhere far that hits as many antique stores as you can drive by.

And promise to drive carefully,

you are not in a hurry.

Now, not everyone is ready to write,

but some of you are a lot further along than you think.

Begin by writing a singe compound sentence at a time,

and that's it, don't press, flow.

Just like dehydration happens, or we sometimes develop vitamin deficiencies,

and need to pay extra attention to what we put in our bodies.

My friends, same goes for our minds,

fear or anxiety will cause you harm, you are not to live in fear of any kind.

Do you know what the symptoms of anxiety are?

Impatience, snapping at small things, thinning hair, wanting to be alone,

sadness, brain fog, body aches, fatigue, bad sleep habits.

These are not things that we can fix, you can't take pain killers for body aches from from fear.

By calling it adventure, I give you a simple choice to make,

but it is more than a simple adventure, I am inviting you on a quest away from the toxic sludge of an unexamined life.

In a way, psychology is a young science,

it is also the most humble and loving of all the Daughters of Philosophy.

There aren't too many answers here,

but there is something, and I can fit it in a sentence for you.

The secret to a long and healthy life is:

Happiness.

I am asking you to move away from fear and other disorders that create countless issues,

and get on a path towards happiness, because that is a very powerful medicine.

Happiness is quite a thing,

it is almost on par with wisdom, though I suppose it the end it is one and the same.

Where wisdom makes you a beautiful writer,

happiness makes you a powerful doctor.

The low key sarcastic, low brow, poker face, dead pan nonsense,

that will feature in your journals due to Happiness and Love of Life.

Has the power to bring the most boorish and scared person from the brink of death,

and plop them in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, walking stick in one hand and a bewildered companion in the other.

I once wondered how we could describe the most powerful beings on earth,

and somehow I came up with a two word description that still frightens-me-a-little to this day:

The Laughing Philosopher.

While, I guess, I am not a real doctor, though the results are not quite in yet,

I am certain that even those who are deeply sad will find something that will bring them a special kind of Happiness when out on an adventure.

And I would argue, that the saddest of us, are the least likely to be eaten by a bobcat,

or dragged away by a condor.

And I know for certain, that the saddest of us,

are the ones that eventually tell the happiest and most triumphant of stories.

All you need to do, is be aware of the terrible fact,

that the first few days of your adventure will feel wrong; you have to snarl through it.

Fight the urge to turn the car around,

that is just the toxic sludge within you fighting for survival, make sure it loses the battle.

It will only take a few days,

and then, everything changes.

Oh my, when you get out of your car,

and your hiking or trail running shoes hit the gravel, it is like hearing bells of kissing a hundred woodland faeries.

By taking that first detoxified step of your new adventure away from lies, bullies, limits and fears,

you can perfectly understand why dogs get zoomies sometimes.

And hearing your first chipmunk,

will absolutely put all the damn birds to shame.

No job, or school, or employer, or alarm clock with a creepy snooze button, or any damn thing,

has any right to your joy of life - do you hear me?

You joy of life is sacred,

everything else has to be secondary.

You are at your most beautiful, and you contribute to the world the most,

when you are Happy, and occasionally mischievous.

Call it an adventure, or intellectual hygiene,

but keep your backpack by the door, and may you be always ready, for the call of the wild.

Because that will mark the rise of your own personal University,

and the beginning of your quest for real education and wisdom.