A Universe Must Expand; Or, Self Directed Education And Your Personal Constellation Of Curiosities

Little questions, must be allowed to grow.

A lot of us forget a very tiny thought we have as children, when learning about great achievers, writers, composers, painters.

The simple thought, cannot be generalized, so it is always asked in context of a specific person, and lesson; and goes like this:

What if Frédéric Chopin, was forced to learn mathematics, instead of learning the Piano.

Considering that a healthy person, who is allowed to grow up normally, develops into a polymath.

And that some great achievers who met a tragic end, were forced into what made them famous.

It is not a very sturdy question to ask, and it is easy destroyed by a brainless slug of a contrarian…

Or a fraudulent teacher, as the case often is.

This maybe the reason why the question of derailing achievers is so fleeting, but non the less, it is a very important question to ask.

We are only missing a couple of components here, both obscured, by a hasty world of poverty, overwork and stress.

The inquirer correctly points at the damage that learning out of sequence, causes to a person’s mind, their creativity, and passion for learning.

And their question made whole, or sturdy, by introducing two new concepts, the constellation of curiosities and the cycle of revisiting them.

We each have a unique combination of questions, and predispositions within us.

It is very much starts or questions, connected by lines, or little quests to find out all the answers.

But it is so poetically framed, to underscore how delicate, precious, beautiful, mysterious and unique the constellation is.

How easily it can be collapsed, damaged, denied, destroyed, and how it can rob a unique achiever of their own talent, and passion.

The cycle of revisiting the stars, is about building on top of what we have previously learned.

In short, the fact that a person will always revisit their own curiosities, and rarely if ever go back to cramming something that they were never interested in.

The person’s own constellation of curiosities, is very much a map of worlds they are interested in.

And each time they visit one of their worlds, they learn more about the universe, and often discover a new star.

The cycle of self directed education, marks their travels, between their worlds and curiosities.

When you pursue a new subject that you feel you are ready for, such as 3D printing you enter into that world almost completely.

You bring in your knowledge of problem solving, but exit all other worlds to focus on just the one you are in.

A new world may emerge, when a student decides, that they had enough of printing other people’s 3D things.

And now they want to learn about precision 3D modeling, so that they can create their own wallets, knobs, mounting brackets, and such.

They may head for that world next, and then return to 3D printing but now with new abilities.

When subjects are forced onto us, as the case is with standardized education, our personal constellation of curiosities is either destroyed, flattened out.

Or collapsed, to lay dormant, in a jumbled mess.

Here, polymaths die, and genius is only a carrot on a stick, to further mislead the trusting students into taking out life long loans.

This creepy and dark world, holds up prestige as an aim, but that prestige can only be gotten to, by having enough money to shine for long enough.

This here, is not worthy, of the students.

And even if they shine for long enough to by whatever means, to win the prize - they are still miserable.

This is because standardized education, is not a universe of stars, but a single line with some stops, dictated by somebody else.

We are navigators, we need to cross different worlds, to learn, and expand.

We grow when we apply by subtle analogy the lessons from one world, to address the challenges of another.

When we are told what to learn, when to learn it, and for how long, the universe or worlds within us, dies, without ever having a chance to develop.

Protect your constellation of curiosities, protect the multiverse of the younger generations, so that it may flourish into a wiser future.

Growing up, has nothing to do with aging, it is a deliberate act of the exploration.

It is an endless quest, to discover fascinating new worlds, that must never cease.

As tot grow up, must mean to grow all the way up, until the adventurer or the student, rises to become a great being.