I love that word, "disenthrall." You know what it means? That there are ideas that all of us are enthralled to, which we simply take for granted as the natural order of things, the way things are. And many of our ideas have been formed, not to meet the circumstances of this century, but to cope with the circumstances of previous centuries. But our minds are still hypnotized by them. And we have to disenthrall ourselves of some of them.
Yes, too many of us are just coping with last century’s problems and constricted with last century’s dreams. But the dreams we should really pursue, should be this century’s future.
One of them is the idea of linearity, that it starts here, and you go through a track, and if you do everything right, you will end up set for the rest of your life. Everybody who's spoken at TED has told us implicitly, or sometimes explicitly, a different story, that life is not linear, it's organic. We create our lives symbiotically as we explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help to create for us. But you know, we have become obsessed with this linear narrative. And probably the pinnacle for education is getting into college. I think we are obsessed with getting people to college, certain sorts of college. I don't mean you shouldn't go to college, but not everybody needs to go, and not everybody needs to go now. Maybe they go later, not right away.
I know studies meant a lot. And I know many who yearn to have an education. And I know I am one of the lucky few who don’t have to sell nasi lemak when young to study my way. But I also know education has freed me and I wish I can free the others too.
There was this guy buying a book, he was in his 30s. And I said, "What do you do?" And he said, "I'm a fireman." And I said, "How long have you been a fireman?" He said, "Always, I've always been a fireman." And I said, "Well, when did you decide?" He said, "As a kid." He said, "Actually, it was a problem for me at school, because at school, everybody wanted to be a fireman." He said, "But I wanted to be a fireman." And he said, "When I got to the senior year of school, my teachers didn't take it seriously. This one teacher didn't take it seriously. He said I was throwing my life away if that's all I chose to do with it, that I should go to college, I should become a professional person, that I had great potential, and I was wasting my talent to do that." And he said, "It was humiliating because he said it in front of the whole class, and I really felt dreadful. But it's what I wanted, and as soon as I left school, I applied to the fire service and I was accepted." And he said, "You know, I was thinking about that guy recently, just a few minutes ago when you were speaking, about this teacher," he said, "because six months ago, I saved his life." (Laughter) He said, "He was in a car wreck, and I pulled him out, gave him CPR, and I saved his wife's life as well." He said, "I think he thinks better of me now."
A classic example of how adults like to impose their ideology on children. I never blame my parents for stopping me from pursuing a psychology education though even till today, I always wondered what my life would be if I had chosen to be a psychologist. But even if my current life has revolved around technology, it does not mean I have lost the life mission I wanted. And even though I have the capability to pursue a psychology education if I truly desire it, I knew I no longer want to waste the time and money on it when there are other more pressing matters to accomplish as time is running out for me.
Often, people are good at things they don't really care for. It's about passion, and what excites our spirit and our energy. And if you're doing the thing that you love to do, that you're good at, time takes a different course entirely. My wife's just finished writing a novel, and I think it's a great book, but she disappears for hours on end. You know this, if you're doing something you love, an hour feels like five minutes. If you're doing something that doesn't resonate with your spirit, five minutes feels like an hour. And the reason so many people are opting out of education is because it doesn't feed their spirit, it doesn't feed their energy or their passion.
Passion. Work passion. Something I deal and blog about many times. I know truly that I can easily like anything I like if I want. And I can easily hate it just as well. So even though I keep repeating to them how much I dislike corporate world, if fate decreed that I must stay in corporate world, I actually can tune myself to like it. But truth is, I have failed so many corporate world interviews. And I have not found the resonance that life can bring me, the passion that one has when one truly found his/her calling.
Actually while watching The Mysteries of Love, I wondered, sometimes parents always want the best for the children. But is it really the best? And when they object, how long will they take to stop objecting?
I am only one
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the
Something that I can do.
- Edward Everett Hale
Video Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment