Unlearning in the School of Life

The price of education is one's one and only life...

Photo by RUT MIIT on Unsplash

I’ve worked on this poem for 70 years now. I realize it is not finished yet, but today seems as good as another to invite, you in to read it and sit with it.

As you know, higher education is in a war these days. And, with all of our acquiring good educations, there just are some things that we must “unlearn” in order to be wise.

The amassing of facts; the rigors of believing “right things”, the feelings of entitlement and elitism are not really getting us anywhere at all.

It may be time to unlearn a few things. As I look over the past ten years of my life, “unlearning” is the title I would give to this present decade. I thought I knew a few things collected in the school of life, but come to find out, my real knowledge is one of unlearning what I thought I knew.

In my poem which follows, I’ve hinted in some places and explained in other stanzas some of my own unlearning. I hope you might relate to this poem.

Do you relate to unlearning?

How does unlearning, as a word and a process describe your own state of your own soul these days?

Welcome my friends to the Un-University of Unlearning. I think it is called, “The School of Life.” I think it is true to say just this, if we live long enough, we will become wise enough to say, life may be as much about unlearning as it is learning.

Steve