What I don’t remember
I was looking through some of the education programs the New York Times offers and saw one on African Art and Artifacts and thought that would be an interesting course to take with T. But the sad truth is that I can’t remember things that I’ve already learned like the other day when I was walking the dogs and couldn’t even recite the Pledge of Allegiance:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Einstein once said never memorize what you can look up in books, and today that goes more than double for the internet. What a resource – find a phone number or lyrics to Amos Lee’s Flower song with just the touch of a button. It’s sort of nutty huh?
So the one thing you cannot find online is experience or the learning for pleasure that comes from taking a course about something compelling but strange to you. I took a course in architecture as an adult extension course years ago in California. I took it with a friend who was also married to an architect. It was fun. I’m not sure I can remember much about it though. And that my dear is the sad fact of my brain – it is a sieve. Only the big chunks of experience are stuck and can’t get out.