Learner

This came to me as I sat thinking, of what I knew of drugs and their design, after three years of didactic “learning”…nothing comes to mind.

But then, life is learning…so it’s alright to have completely forgotten what’s textbook, or to have drooled all over my homework, or sat in oblivion of lecturer’s voices. Not that I’ve taken these for granted, but simply, I have seen the big pic. I have learned, so life is.

See, there’s a reason for beginning with ABCs at kindergarten, then ending with essays in “English for Academic Purposes”. There’s a reason for beginning with 123, then ending with integration and simultaneous equations. Do you see it? Quick…spell progress!
The minute and intricate details of the subject matter aren’t as important as the learning itself. In progress through topics A to B, we learn the details of A and B, but even more so, we learn how to learn. The model of “school” is a model of learning how to in itself. We journey through school terms, then called “semesters”, we are brought to fathom the meaning of “progress”, from ABC to vowels and sentence construction; from 123 to algebraic function…we learn the meaning of learning itself, and how to. It is only after learning the art of learning that we are able to learn the art of practice. And “work” is this: learning how to practice.

The bulk of learning begins with practice…for it is here that life truly begins. A degree program does not make professionals…practice does. A profession, by definition, is an occupation that requires special training in the liberal arts or sciences. A professional may engage in these, but is truly made what he is by more than simply what is learned at school. Having learned how to learn…after some 20 + years…he must now learn how to apply learning itself, through practice, the end product of which is wisdom (i.e. the effective ability to apply knowledge).

A student completing a three year university degree program would have spent on average 22 years simply learning how to learn. Assuming that such an individual lives a sheltered life (i.e. livin for “free” in yuh mother and father house, have yuh own room and being properly fed and watered), he/she would have spent these years learning how to...walk, ride a bike, brush teeth, read a book, count fingers in figures, write and speak letters. We learn to find meaning in the least likely of moments, and of dangers to walking the earth as we do, simple skill as breath-holding beneath water, of microscope and surgeon’s knives, that teach us to scour for what’s minuet, and yet of detailed imprints of macro-designers...of colossal statues and walls and scraping towers tipping heavenward. As all animals do, we learn the traits and tricks of survival. There is, however...one glaring difference.

No one teaches the newborn antilope to stand its ground mere seconds after birth. Or hatchlings of bald eagles, tossed from towering nests above, must open sprawl their delicate wings to catch wind...lest they plunge to their death. Needless to say...nature cares for its own, with meticulous balance forged among elements, life and death, dark and light, cold and hot...they’re all on the same plane. Scales of justice tip as they please; there are no real predictors of outcomes, no inherently born solutions. What’s natural in fact, is that there aren’t any problems...unless we make them. And herein lies the beauty of mankind...the fact that we have learned how to learn. Count your blessings! Doubt if you will, and yes...with errors too, but we’ve actually come a long way. Since Homo Habilis had first hurled rocks in defence of life (and what little it was), or sculpted javelins of sharpened sticks, he had scored a milestone in the very first chapters of human evolution. Man was learning the art of control, through tough beaten skins to one day beat his own drums. Our cave-men never caved to her whims; to shifting winds that force feathers to fly north, or winter’s flaked fairy dust falling...to cast on beasts a spell of slumber; we’ve learned by trial to mould masks against it, sheltering our skins and our faces, carved spears in anguish of living...and necessity, of learning to thrust these against thick hides of those beasts we once feared. We have learned how to. And how to build dreams. To offset what was once inconvenience, or what anguish and fear by patient testing have earned, they twist heels backward, scribing symbols on soil with fingers; on rock walls plastered detailed observance; intricate but subtle equations for living (at least as they did); taught their children to master what’s natural. There are ways to wind that blows where it pleases, methods of running circles round nature, and her laws; a way that in silent orbit of planets we’ve found...to bend rules. Blessed be out teachers. Those who have braved the deep, and tallest mountains of human trial, wrangled monsters...fur to scale to claw to fang, sacrifice of life and limb. Christ to Confucius, DaVinci to Einstein; we have learned...so life is.

“Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your school are the work of many generations. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully hand it on to your children.” – Albert Einstein

Mountain-us

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Nothing in life is ever as it seems. Where rose gather, poison ivy thrives. Darnel weaves itself between wheat.

I prayed for strength, but instead was made weak, that I may acknowledge my source of mortal vigour.
I prayed for healing, but instead was left ill, that I may share in fullness of His suffering.
I prayed for money, but was given a job, that I may understand that freedom must be earned.
I prayed for holiness, but was left a wretch, that I may always yearn to be like Him.
I prayed for peace, but was given disaster, that I may exercise my faith in trials.
I prayed for love, but the world hated me, that I may understand that love expects nothing.
I prayed for this mountain to sink beneath sea, but was only granted eyes to behold its beauty, legs to climb, hands to cultivate slopes, ears to enjoy the melody of birds and a tongue to savour its pure, sparkling springs of living water.

Then…I prayed only for His grace. It was given onto me ten thousand fold. Only then had I realized how blessed I truly was.
Fact is, we always expect that God should live up to our own expectations. But…do we live up to His?
Disappointment is often the product of misunderstanding. You may have the faith to burst a thousand mustard seeds, but mountains will never shift unless they were designed to. Enter these gates with openness of mind and spirit, walk amongst the reeds and lakeside lilies. Learn the wisdoms of wind and its promise; of how gingerly it sways the stillness of branches; and how leaves choreograph their dances to speak of it. The mountain-tops we long to demolish; these hold the monuments our lives are worth climbing for; sanctuaries born of Eden’s emerald waters; first fruits of knowledge and seeds of purity; swans of grace that seam these waters in webbed fingers of mercy; and creeping vines, in tortuous tentacles dip and rise at the fringes of these streams. What are these features…if not life itself?

But life, you claim, is none but your mountain. Your dreams, you claim, lie beyond the ghastly ridges before you. Sometimes it takes just a little courage…before faith itself is born. For as you stand with mustard seeds in withered palm, believing it would burst and blossom right where and when you’d want it…something deep inside psyche tells you…it won’t. See…there’s a sanctified soil atop these mountains brewed in the very hands of their designer…ground like sand between His fingers; exudate of majestic divinity. Spread to thin paste, sifted through mercy, refined in love…manure black as darkest void, that brings to fullness design through desire. Mustard seeds are made for this soil. So stomach your pride, renounce all burdens, clear you mind…make the journey. You’ll find in its wisdom that all sanctuaries…were once but the tiny mustard seeds of noble men, quite like you and I…ordinary people who dare to climb against trials, to die and lay what’s left of their lives…trusting only that this soil is worth it. The hikers find it; gazing to heaven as heaven touches, their skins, substance of life transfigured as they blink. Nothing touches like sweet heaven touches. And none but the hikers have found their rest here, grazing on pastures of life, thick and lush, or drinking of dew lying lazy amongst the grass, catching sweet melodies of wind as it funnels through slender stalks.

So go ahead, dance your own rhythm, bare your heels, baptise it heaven…knowing that you have conquered these mountains, earned your right to walk His presence. Why then do we plead that mountains be moved, or reduced to rubble for our convenience? Why do we cower in facing the ominous, to make circles round life’s greatest obstacles, thinking it better to stride past it’s sides, fearing death may dominate the climb? But life is found in the deadliest of places, in anguish of war and famine and strife, born of adversities, christened by trial. The problem is that we expect what is trivial, roses we think would sprout without thorns, a host of simplistic solutions, and signposts, at every corner of life, or exists to problems we thought would open wide.
But this…this is where your life begins…when you learn that courage is what climbs mountains, and faith is what does the crowning.

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 2: Of Design and Desire

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.” – Albert Camus

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.” – Anne Frank

We are born for it, built for it, live for it. Regardless of creed, culture, age, gender or social class, human design hinges on one basic and cohesive element: the desire for happiness. From the crowning abode of the most affluent heads of state, to the meekness of a light spirited naturist, to scholar-code, white-coated professors, pioneers and influential thinkers, to withering infants of West Africa’s wasteland. Every man, woman and child will rest his head upon satin pillows, or hay stacks, or concrete morsels at the awnings of darkness, to dream of one thing: the dawn of happiness. As to how we achieve this common goal, though, is every man’s personal quest.

THE “YOU” FACTOR

The gift of desire is divin-o-genic (coming from God). Desire, in its purest and most beautiful sense, comes to its fullness within us when nourished by the gift of Knowledge. Healthy desire is born of a womb that knows, in full, the nature of that to which it seeks to give birth. In this context, the “womb” is our heart. So before we come into true desire of happiness, we must first know happiness. But then, to know happiness, one must first have a sense of unhappiness. To know light, you must know darkness. It is from, and within the darkness of our heart that light becomes true desire. From the shadows of anguish...we yearn rest, in the midst of chaos...peace, in hurt...healing. Desire is built in void...as we are. The human condition, by nature, is designed in darkness, nested within a womb for 9 months, then born into light...in which it will grow. As the mustard seed withers before its bloom, so too we grow vacant before light birth. The “void” of darkness within and around us creates desire...and desire, as a magnet, draws us closer to that which was designed to fill us. Hence from the womb, the foetus is drawn...extracted almost, into the light. Our “extraction” into light (the light birth) signifies the first phase of our human design to desire.

Now, having been born into light, we grow into it, in the culmination that we live to desire it. A phase at which our human condition seeks to grow intimate with what we are born into. We no longer take comfort in our birthright of “living in light”, but rather we desire that light live within us...that we live OF the light...that we become light ourselves. We have matured into the second phase of our design – the heart of desire: to live light. The “You” factor embodies the concept of each human, existing by nature as an “imperfect whole”; deficient in one aspect or another, but designed to become whole. The “You” conceptualizes all means: every word, thought and action executed by each personal being in quest to fulfil their void of true desire...a quest for completion of self. And again the receptacle theory gives new relevance to the human tendency to cling to physical entities of our external sphere, which, in some sense, are viewed as essential elements of internal stability. Given our “void” nature, we, as humans, are not quite “self sustained” units, but essentially require external ingredients to help make us “whole”. The necessity of an external body as an integral part of the completion model brings us to the “We factor”.

THE “WE” FACTOR

The nutrition experts can all agree to the beautifully beneficial effects of Vitamin C as an antioxidant on the biological scale. Healthcare providers recommend, to every adult, the consumption of at least 1000mg of Vitamin C daily. Many mammals are well equipped with the necessary biological tools to produce their own Vitamin C; we humans are one of the unfortunate few that can’t (a defect upon which lies the blame of either God or “evolution”...or both). But thanks to keen advancements in pharmaceutical care, today we can pop a pill or two and award our beautiful bodies a daily gift of antioxidants to keep cells happy and working as they should. Here is a fine example of obtaining what is necessary for within from out. So we are built to complete ourselves, but not by ourselves. The idea that “no man is an island” sheds light on two essential aspects of our design: 1. The Contact element: Every human being is, either through direct or indirect means, in constant dynamic interaction with another. 2. The Companion element: Each individual is designed, in some way, to complement another. He is, in turn, complemented by another. Research geared towards investigating the habits, thoughts and lifestyle of so called “feral children” gives evidence of the companionship factor playing a central role in basic human development. In essence, a child left to grow in absence of basic human contact will grow to lack the basic social, behavioural and psychological elements of what we commonly call “human nature”. Evidently, then, my human-ness was not simply inherited, nor will I, left alone, simply “grow into it”. Agreeably though, it is to some extent already “in us”, but an acquisition factor is also at play here.

The master design is such that we BECOME human THROUGH human. Viewed as a “completion factor”, human-ness exists both in vivo as “what you’re born with” (the nature element) and ex vivo as “what you acquire” through contact and companionship (the nurture element). We attain the fullness of understanding and appreciating our human purpose when both elements are merged: one complements the other. We shall never quite become “whole” as humans unless our nature is nourished by nurture; we are human by birth, and yet we grow to "become" what we are through human contact, fellowhip, love...the elements of design through which we we beciome the light into which we are born. It is therefore by “mutual affection”, through human presence, that we as individuals are able to grasp the fullness of the human element. It is through complement in companionship that we come to discover ourselves, our purpose, potential, our beauteous design...of what it means to be human. Then happiness, undeniably, is the empowerment to live what we are, in and through the completeness of each other, of humanity reflecting the summit of creation. For in the beginning, God looked over his design in eyes of contentment, and He “saw that it was good”. Happy are we who find relevance in the fact that all “goodness”...began with a void; desire from darkness.

Today we shall grow into mutual affection; to finding Christ in each other, He who completes me in Himself, through human fellowship.

The Pursuit of Happiness Part 1: The Receptacle Theory

“We enter this world with a screaming heart, thrusting ourselves head first into the open...fighting against our knotted umbilical cord, to leave nurture for nature...in zealous desire to begin living. Sadly we lose ourselves somewhere between creeping and walking...that unsteady gait made for stumbling...then to standing in a world we thought we knew...but never loved...to crouching with cane to wheelchair to bedridden. Then to leave this world with a whimper. Program terminate, riddle unsolved. Without His grace, the journey is pointless.”

You are what you eat. That which you allow to enter this temple...is what this temple shall become. You are living, breathing thought.Think...Examine the nature of your “food for thought”. What energies (physical, spiritual and emotional) have you “ingested” within the past 24 hours? If you’re not feeling your best today, chances are...you thought yourself into it. What? Are you going to blame your lack of well being on a bunch of battery operated chemical reactions that know nothing apart from their inherent ability to keep natural order? Stand up, be a real man (or woman) and face your problem. But there’s one other problem apart from the actual problem itself, which is the fact that the problem itself...is you. We must now engage the most daunting of questions: Can you face yourself? Or rather...do you have the guts to? (The word ‘guts’ being used both playfully and symbolically here). Theoretically speaking, we are, at the core, first person...but we live in the third. And no matter how “developed” your country of residence, we are all, individualistically, third world. Not only is it comforting to know that no man is an island, but also quite humbling a reality that it’s not all about the “I” but rather the “He”, “She”, “It” and “They”.

Tell me...how much of you is actually you? I mean...how much of you is there in you? (No really...stop laughing/frowning and answer the question like the good girl/guy i know you are). Look...the language and grammar system on Microsoft Word ’07 attempted to correct my improper English by suggesting that i substitute the word “is” after “you” for “are”. Then the question would read: “I mean...how much of you are there in you?” But then, grammatically speaking, the question still does now sit well unless the word “much” is changed to “many”. The grammatically sound question would now read: “I mean...how many of you are there in you?” An irrevocable sense of plurality is evident. It is therefore no surprise that we so often struggle with issues of identity. The question “Who am I?” has passed unsolved into the graves of some of the world’s leading theologians, philosophers and scientists. And again, it all gathers in the abyss of our third world nature. In semblance of the classic third world economy, we, as singular physical, emotional and spiritual entities, “import” a lot more from the external than we “export”. We are broadly “receptacle bases”, consuming, storing (and conditionally) excreting various energy inputs arising from our external sphere of existence. The receptacle theory, in itself, adequately and rationally spawns the familiar adage: “You are what you eat.”

Indeed, a broad spectrum of the various energies (both positive and negative) we allow to enter our being, is stored within us. In fact, our receptacle nature has made us so open to external energies, we often become the subject of their manifestations. The right energies are those which, when consumed, will build who we are, foster spiritual, emotional and mental growth, and improve our overall state of well being. The wrong ones, on the other hand, will crush character, compromise our physical, mental and emotional integrity and fracture self esteem. Depress-o-genic thoughts like “I’m not good enough”, “I can’t do this” and “I don’t fit in” are toxic in nature, metabolize rapidly to poisons in vivo, cause extensive emotional and spiritual injury, and are in general poorly excreted. Poor excretion is often linked to the ability of a given thought/idea to adhere to the framework of our conscience/subconscience. Once firmly bound, they exhibit a marked tendency towards propagation or mass attraction – one thought leads to another: negative attracts negative. Any substance under our consumption (whether material or otherwise) that resists excretion will essentially become a part of us, provided that the ultimate effect of its ingestion is non-lethal. So...“what doh kill...does fatten.” Notably important: the ingestion and storage of material substances affects WHAT we are. Conversely...that of non-material entities will affect WHO we are.

The sound mental and spiritual diet is one that seeks to limit our consumption of negative/destructive energies, and makes maximum use of positive ideas, words and reflections. When we “fatten” ourselves on the wrong energies, we grow to reflect the fruits of disorder within our being. We become the product of our consumption: depressed, angry, corrupt, envious, apathetic. We lose sight of happiness and our passion for living. Careful control of what thoughts and energies we harbour within ourselves is the first step towards achieving true happiness. So let’s begin with metacognition – thinking about what you’re thinking first of all...tame the subconscious tongue into speaking positive thoughts about yourself. Naturally, then, we become less prone to ingesting and storing the unhealthy energies of our external sphere, but rather, the light within us attracts light from the external. Essentially, we internally become magnets of positive power.

2 Corinthiamns 4:712 confers the analogy of the human being as “a vessel of great spiritual treasure” – “But we hold this treasure in pots of earthenware, so that the immensity of the power is God’s and not our own. We are subjected to every kind of hardship, but never distressed, we see no way out but we never despair, we are pursued but never cut off; knocked down, but still have some life in us; always we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus, too, may be visible in our body...”We have little control over what the world feeds to us, but we do have the full power to control what we eat, and what we make of it. Understanding and embracing the great treasure and light force at the core of our being allows us to fall...and yet rise again, pressed on every side...but not crushed, struck down...but never destroyed. Because above all, we are built to hold the great treasure of life, the power of light, and the gift of happiness.

Today i shall respect my mental gut, with the right diet of word, thought and cognitive energies.