THE MOST NECESSARY TASK OF CIVILIZATION

Do you think for yourself?  Always?

Or are your thoughts still in the mold that was created for you when you were a child?

Many are not even aware that they are NOT thinking for themselves.  The mold becomes their comfort zone:  safe, predictable, accepted by peers, languidly pleasant, non-threatening to the culture at large.

Progress (the exciting and rewarding upward development of mankind) depends on those who actually encourage their own original thoughts and seek to discover where they may lead.

“The most necessary task of civilization is to teach people how to think.  The trouble with our way of educating is that it does not give elasticity to the mind.  It casts the brain into a mold.  It does not encourage original thought or reasoning, and it lays more stress on memory than observation.”  – – Thomas Edison

“Elasticity of the mind”:  Hmmm.  Try it;  you’ll like it!

LOVELY SERIOUSNESS

The public library I frequent is adjacent to a school playground.  It is interesting to listen to the pitch and tone of the children’s yells as they burst from the door at recess time.

George B. Leonard, author of Education and Ecstasy made some insightful observations:

“It has been my experience that, wherever the classroom situation is repressive and antithetical to learning, the playground situation, in direct ratio, is hyperactive and equally antithetical to learning.  In true play the child is intent, responsive, unhurried, completely involved.  There is a lovely seriousoness about it.  The child who explodes out of and in reaction to a static, non-learning environment is hurried, unresponsive, indeed almost spastic.  This is not delight; it is desperation.”

I yearn for the day when people of all ages can truly play and play all day with lovely seriousness, and in so doing begin to hugely benefit the world with their insights, discoveries, creativity and inventions.