Sunday 6 May 2018

It is just a memory.


 

Some of us just never learn. I remember how difficult learning was. In the days of my youth, a great deal of learning was memorising poems or lists of Kings and Queens, strangely enough, always the kings and Queens of England and I was sitting in a classroom in Scotland, and I never knew till many years later Scotland had their own Kings and Queens.
I found such learning so very difficult, not that I did not have a memory, because I had an amazing capability of remembering things that I was told. it was the reading that was the problem. Not only did I have to memorise I had to first read what I was going to remember. 
If I could get somebody to read it out for me a few times I had a much easier task. I did, of course, manage to defeat the problem with those words looking all wrong but that is another story.
So today I can sit here and recite loads of memorised information most of which is of little help to me unless of course I am asked to past the test for British Citizenship. Take a look at the questions you have to learn and know about for that exercise, an utter waste of time and most of no value whatsoever.
We now live in the age of data, and we have to beware how that can be used. Learning is not just about the gathering of information and date it has to go a step further and be well managed and sorted into useful and just information. 
True wisdom comes not in the learning but in the value of the learned knowledge. We will never be anything if we learn put do not use what we have learned wisely.
I know a person who can quote great screeds of texts from the Bible, the words and messages of Jesus. I also know a person who can recite the whole of the Quoran and another who can recite the whole of the Tao Te Ching. 
The trouble is not one of them seem to be able to put into practice the words they have learned. What good is a person who knows the teachings of Jesus but judges others in a cruel and harsh manner?
All knowledge needs a healthy dose of experience, experimentation, and contemplation. it takes time to learn not only the words but how to put them into action. Wisdom is not simply a mental process but the sum total of a human being.
Let me finish with a little smile about people not learning how to put words into action.
Three men die and go to heaven. At the Pearly Gates, St. Peter says to them "whatever you do, don't step on a pink cloud".
The first guy goes off wandering. when he comes back, he's accompanied by one of the ugliest women you've ever seen.
"What happened to you?" asked the other two. "I stepped on a pink cloud" he replied. 
The second man goes off wandering and comes back with an even uglier girl. "What happened to you?" they asked. "I stepped on a pink cloud."
The last man goes off wandering and comes back with the most beautiful woman any of them have ever seen. "What happened?" they asked. 
The woman responded, "I stepped on a pink cloud."
have a wonderful day and beware of pink clouds.

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