On The Vastness Of Heart

Of course, it is not just aging,

but is it also more than just learning.

Some say "Lean into the discomfort.",

others "Don't try go all the way.".

It is all about building ourselves,

layer by layer.

The layers,

need not always be on the same subject.

You may start an artist, or a dreamer, or a mechanic,

and then move to urban explorer, photographer, and islander.

The steps we take are slightly different,

from what we take away.

An artist learns the harmony of colors,

the strange simplicity of desaturating colors by mixing opposites.

The dreamer learns that a dream is not just a dream,

because if you snag on it and carry it out, it will become true.

The mechanic learns about a screw,

if you tighten it too much you will ruin it.

The urban explorer learns that the attorney,

that left his stuff behind was always suffering and died alone.

The photographer learns that it is the journey,

and the photo is a mere bookmark in memories.

And the islander,

ohh, the islander.

Finally, when the golden age of wisdom and endless aches and grunts comes,

the islander learns that life is to be lived fully.

And what that means, is that we take what we learned from the day before,

mix it with today, and get it ready to mix it with tomorrow.

Like a waterfall that runs into to the ocean,

the new things we learn add to the body of the old.

With old age being a privilege denied to so many,

the treasure we carry truly becomes magnificent as we move forth.

We can't learn all at once,

and we can't fully learn through synthetic means.

At schools the curriculum is so warped,

it can only be dishonestly memorized.

Audio Books and Lectures, go a long way,

so as long as you make room for the lessons within.

Education requires room, here there can be no stress from grades,

no craziness for a high GPA, brand name education, and a promise of a job.

We need life, we need the full thickness of life,

and then an urge to study will emerge.

That thick life,

will move us.

It will uncover an absence of knowledge,

and it will feel great to fill it right up with precisely 14 books on the subject.

A synthetic education born from being forced to learn,

is a very poor education.

Memorization,

is not an education at all, it is actually dangerous and stupid.

And networking with grads from a brand name university to get stuff done,

has nothing to do with getting educated, it is a service trading club.

Learning from books,

whilst walking a huge trail filled with Bobcats and Mountain Lions,

is far superior of a teacher than anything claiming to educate today.

And one of the best things about books,

is that they make mistakes sometimes.

Their authors get so inspired,

that their ideas sometimes take off and fly in the sky.

And when you catch a famous Author on such a flight of fancy,

you learn even more, you learn about Excellence.

(And how useless, and desperate, and child like book critics are.)

Medical Schools are not an exception here,

textbooks are important, practice even more,

but so is healing a person on the inside, within their mind.

We can all imagine an excellent doctor, extremely professional,

perfect grades, well read, awesome person all around, no complaints.

And we can imagine what it is like to suffer without hope,

and seeing this kind individual, just move on to the next patient.

See, being a perfect Doctor, is not enough,

the surgery is not over when the procedure is done.

And people can tell when someone merely follows etiquette,

and merely pops in for a moment to say something nice, and be done with it.

Be it a Doctor, Scientist, Musician, Artist,

Dreamer, Adventurer, Rebel, even Beloved Professor...

...more is needed.

Greatness of heart,

is a really good start.

But, I think the golden standard of Life and Art,

is; Vastness of Heart.

There is no describing it, but these Beautiful Beings,

smile, and laugh, no matter the weather,

And when they speak, they seem to be part of Cosmos,

not just Earth.

A Mechanic who borrows from his work,

for purposes of Wisdom.

Will hold up a screw,

and say.

"In order for this important piece of the system to do its job,

you have to know when too much of tightening the screw will damage it."

This is a good example of what we see in schools,

Elementary is a Dream, Middle School kind of works,

but creating High School by just making subjects more demanding, is insane.

The screw is tightened,

damaged, and now, it cannot be repaired.

At the very least, we must help the children to create a start-up,

to work together on building 3D printed inventions, learning Linux, and coming up with new stuff.

And help them setup a way of charging customers,

a way of advertising products, and wipe their fears of poverty.

The kids, are always smarter than us,

they build on top of what we have built.

We are not giving them the tools for their future,

we teach pure Trigonometry and this cannot be dumber.

Because to teach Trigonometry,

all the teacher has to do is create a class about

building games that get published on Steam (game store).

What a teacher may not do,

is force feed pure triangle garbage to people who don't have an interest in it.

It is not hormones (and no teacher should ever say that), students simply stop listing,

when they figure out the teachers are... selling them out for a paycheck.

Dreamers are my favorite,

here is someone who sits down and thinks up the following,

"If I was born on a different continent,

to a different religion, I would be asked to worship that other god that I am told is false."

"Furthermore," - and you know there is always a furthermore,

that's part of the reason why they cannot be stopped.

"Aren't we all atheists,

to all the other gods."

And just when you think she was done with it,

she adds "Why don't we go the extra step and love All Life, All Wisdom, All Good Ideas, and All Human Beings"

And the next thing you know,

you realize she was never a Dreamer, nor was she ever little.

She's a Philosopher.

To tell children, that there exists a group of Universal Beings,

that dedicate their lives and immortality to Wisdom,

and passing it on to all the future generations,

is to help them grow from the highest of mountains.

And the Urban Explorer,

they see homes after the families left.

They see pictures,

and smiles, and forgotten hopes.

They see passage of time,

they see the motion of generation upon generation.

They can see the homes as they were on Christmas,

and they can read the medical bills scattered in the corner.

These so called scoundrels,

often chased away like dogs.

They are working on wording a lesson,

that they hope to voice some day.

Maybe come their golden age,

as Guggenheim shows their works.

They will speak of leaving bad ideas behind,

and sharing in all the good ones.

How truly precious all our daily chores,

how it is these little ordinary moments that add to create almost all our lives.

"There are no ordinary moments" as Dan Millman says.

Layer by layer, and the sequence will come deep from within the heart,

and it will reveal it self by means of curiosity.

When a day comes, and you find yourself looking out the window,

with more pleasure than than writing games or interactive fiction,

or managing your corporation, or putting out fire tornadoes.

Deep from within your heart,

a new curiosity calls to you.

And it can only make you better,

better at what you do, help you climb higher than the height you are on right now.

You don't have to switch careers,

but you do need to throw a loaf of bread into your back pack.

And hit the trail.

If you are out east Section Hike the Appalachian Trail,

if you are out west than hike the Pacific Crest Trail,

if you are out in the Pacific then set of for the Kalalau on the island of Ka'uai.

Bring your Audio Books,

and make no mistake,

Because the end of that trail,

marks only the beginning of your new adventure.

Remember the aim, my friends:

Vastness Of Heart!