Learning doesn’t stop once you finish high-school, college, or any other form of higher education. It doesn’t stop just because you cross across some stage, in outfits you pay hundreds of dollars for, to get a piece of paper nicely folded and wrapped with a bow. Just because you graduated something, it doesn’t mean learning stops and you don’t ever have to do any studying again. We learn until the very last breath we take. Every single experience, every person we meet, every instance of confusion, anger, exhilaration, every sigh and shrug of the shoulders, every trip we make, even if it’s the same one over and over again, everything is learning. You can look at the same thing every day and see something new every day.
You can watch a movie over and over, and notice new subtleties to the dialogue, new inflections in the actors’ voices, new objects in the setting, new light, new emotion, new everything. You can hear a song and hear new sounds every time you hear it again. You learn the lyrics by heart because you listen to it so much, but every time, EVERY TIME, you hear new emphasis on a different word in a line. And that’s learning. We learn from everything that happens to us, and around us. We learn from the way people look at us, differently depending on the situation. We learn from conversations we overhear and interpret and judge. We learn from children’s play, from their unusual ways of dancing sometimes, from their smiles and innocent but intensely hilarious comments. We learn in situations when we are the authority, and we are the ones expected to know everything and deliver it to others.
We learn so much about ourselves every day. But still, some individuals have forgotten that. And some choose to ignore it on purpose, under the mistaken assumption that if they hold any kind of authority over someone else, they don’t need to learn anything new anymore. That is a scary thought. I wish more people paid attention to everything they learn every day, no matter how insignificant that may seem. When you reach the point of not learning anymore, you stop evolving. The human race has to evolve even more, so as not to disappear without a trace when a major global catastrophe happens. Sadly, I see more and more people not learning anymore. It breaks my heart to see so many beautiful things ignored on a daily basis. It breaks my heart to know that people get to a point and then they think they don’t need to learn anything knew, because they already know it all. It is even sadder to me that I have to work and accept guidance from people like that. I refuse. I have to keep learning, and I have to keep evolving, for myself and those I consider my family, and for those I hope to help. I won’t ever stop learning. Neither should you. Because ignorance is NOT bliss. Ignorance is death.