by Tricia Kidd
We often over exaggerate the importance of a good education and of being clever. A good education helps you to get an interesting job and possibly a better salary. A good education helps you to understand the world around you.
A good education can give you some ideas about history to give you a blueprint (whether true or not) that helps you with a mental landscape on which to place yourself and understand the concept of time.
Geography gives you a mental picture of the planet, the landscape, the places to which you can travel and a sense of being in the place where you are.
Language and literature give you the tools to communicate verbally and to understand how others chose to use the language to express their inner thoughts and to describe what they see and feel in their lives.
Science and engineering give a mental picture and a handbook for interpreting all of the messages that your senses give you. Science and engineering give you the tools to use and change the physical work around you. Build, mend, invent.
And so on...
People might say: ‘This person is clever’ or ‘I want to be clever’. But being purely ‘clever’ is being fluent in the education that you have been given.
The next real stage for living a true and full life, is to ask yourself how you are functioning. Because all the education, knowledge, cleverness are really just tools to help you to function effectively as a human being.
To do that, you need to say: What do I really want to achieve today? Which obstacles do I need to overcome? How will I assign tasks to myself and how will I complete them? Then you search through your mental toolbox to find the knowledge, behaviour and skills that you will need to complete your tasks for the day.
Being clever on its own is utterly meaningless. Being functional is what really matters.
Go blossom!
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