One day, I mentioned to a discussion group how I’m dying to
go back and really learn physics and trigonometry and all the things I skimmed
through in school, and then tackle the things I skipped altogether, like
calculus and quantum mechanics and molecular biology. It excites me to think how much of God and
his world is knowable if you do the work to learn about it. And it irritates me to think how we were all
led to believe we were in either the Math/Science or the Language/Arts camp and
should stay where we belonged.
One of my friends noted that this approach was the opposite
of that put forth by a strength-finders class she’d taken, which apparently
suggests that we focus on our strengths so as not to waste time dabbling. (I should note that this may well be a
terrific class. I haven’t taken it and
can’t judge.)
As usual, I had no retort, this probably the result of not
reading enough.
But then I got to thinking how a Renaissance man could
research astronomy one day and theology the next, and how he might produce
paintings and sculpture that were the direct results of his mathematical and
scientific research, and how he might write eloquently about all of it. And all of this without stopping to wonder if
it was allowed, if he were legitimately, you know, a “math person.”
The difference is detaching from the quantifiable-results
equation. When we focus our energies on
what is profitable, on those of our skills that are most salable, we become
single-function production robots.
Developing a human being, on the other hand, is highly
impractical.
I think of John and Abigail Adams and how between farming
without machinery, raising and educating children, helping to birth a nation
and developing its nascent philosophies, they made time to read everything
available enough times over that they could quote with facility. Abigail wasn’t even formally educated, but
she never doubted her ability to read, understand, grow, and pass on her
knowledge, nor the value of doing so.
In fact, I think that reading and learning widely, inside
and way, way outside our prescribed realms, is the primary way that we preserve
humanity and culture.
Ok. I have to go read
now.
