The Supertramp lyrics I quoted in the last post are, of course, interesting; but my training in theory, especially in the fields of literature and criticism, makes me read it against the grain.
When one is young is life really wonderful , a miracle, magical and beautiful?
The lyricist adds a qualifying "seems."
I remember: when I was small I actually wanted to go to school. This was because I have two elder brothers and a sister and watching two of them dress up everyday in their uniforms and take their schoolbags with books in it and go away made me feel they were more "grown up" than I...
When I did go to school, however, through sheer bad luck I got an awful teacher - a kind of bat out of hell- in the first standard and it ruined my schooling experience....
In those days , by the way, one could go to first standard directly... no K.G. ... no test...
When I reached college I 'felt' much happier . There was freedom there.
I came away from schooling pretty muddled.
The "confusion" of "learning" that Supertramp speaks of ..... I guess?! Partly inner confusion. Good teachers were rare....
I am writing this primarily from the point of view of a student....
In two of his poems T.S. Eliot speaks about how knowledge has been the bane of modern man's existence. I sought knowledge and that was perhaps the cause for my unhappiness with the system of education.....
He says that knowledge is different from wisdom...
We in India use the words gnana and vidya ....
I acquired vidya but found that what I needed was the gnana to apply the vidya...
It is clear that from the moment of birth man needs to learn....
But how does one learn? What? When? Where? From who? And last but not least, why and to what extent, i.e; how much? In other words how can I gain the gnana needed to move beyond the duality/maya of avidya and vidya...
A lot of it(learning) comes naturally and spontaneously. Some of it is "thrust", like "greatness" upon us. :).But of what we can consciously muster of learning, there we need to choose judiciously and wisely....
Samuel Beckett who was a brilliant academician discovered one day that he wanted to be an artist and threw up scholarship for consummate artistry. He eventually won a Nobel Prize for Literature but in the early years of struggle as a writer he wrote this revealing poem aptly titled
GNOME
Spent/d the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning
My memory plays me tricks . I forget - but do not regret it - the exact tense of the first word of this gnomic utterance.
To sum up:
My children still learn in the same outdated system I grew up in, more or less, because I am (outwardly?) a conventional person.
But if I had a second conscious chance, what would I do?
What kind of schooling would I want?
Let me try and think it through......
(The photo is that of Samuel Beckett. I also wanted to post one of T.S. Eliot but I think I'll keep it for later. The photo is titled "Samuel Beckett's craggy stare" .....)
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