By Kevin Thomson
I hate learning. But I love experiences. If learning
is involved in my experiences, so is forgetting,
so if I liked learning, I would also have to like
forgetting. Since I don’t like forgetting,
I don’t like learning. Hate is a bit too
strong a word, but “don’t like” seems
to work for me.
Someone once told me that life is all about learning
things. I thought that was crazy talk. Why would
any creator make us learn things all our life?
And if there is no creator, why would “evolution” dictate
to us to “learn stuff”? It doesn’t
make any sense to me. Then that person argued that
life didn’t make any sense. I thought that
was even crazier. Of course life makes sense!
Life is quite simple, actually. If you remove
all the silly rules we’ve placed upon 
ourselves.
Each of us since the beginning of time has been
born, eats, drinks, sleeps, has experiences and
dies. The only variables there are the details
we choose and the details that random chance provides.
Our choices make us who we are. Random chance gives
us the opportunity to experience unique things.
Choice and random chance are delicious! They are
very exciting tools for enjoying life. Way more
exciting than “learning stuff”.
Every time I learn something, I end up forgetting
it later on anyway. So if I believed that life
was about how good my memory is, I would surely
feel like a significant failure.
I don’t have to “remember” to
eat, drink, sleep or die. My body will tell me
when I should focus on those things. I don’t
have to learn how to have puberty, or grow hair
to replace the ones that drop off (although I could
have used a little help on the top of my head – do
you think that was a lapse in my learning?). I
don’t have to learn how to fall in love,
and I don’t have to learn how to fall out
of love. In fact, that’s a very good lesson
to not go through the learning. I’m so glad
the universe is looking out for me, and not my
memory of things I’ve learned. I’m
so glad that I can choose to learn things for various
reasons, but if I forget them later on, that’s
okay!
So I guess learning is okay if you choose to do
so. In fact, I’ve enjoyed many moments of
learning. Come to think of it, some of the greatest
moments of my life have taught me some things,
but I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten
them. But that’s okay. I can learn it again
when I choose to.
But this is all just my opinion, and you probably
have your own. Next month you can write an article
for Ted, and I’ll read it and have an opinion
on it too. And we’ll have still learned nothing,
but we’ll have some great experiences. Have
a fantastic, experienced filled day and take it
easy on the learning. And don’t forget about
the forgetting!
Kevin Thomson was the first person
to run solo across Canada (8078km or 5048miles)
without a support
team. He is an avid lover of life and has been
a huge inspiration to Ted Schredd and Discoverfun.
If you would like to email Kevin, contact him at kevin@creativecrossings.com
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