Dec. 6: Learning new things

 I don't know why I get all defensive and anxious at the prospect of learning something new. Maybe it's eldest child syndrome.* Maybe it's my sin nature. Maybe it's because I'm a Capricorn. There's this stupid part of me that thinks I am not good enough right now and that is why I have to go to someone else to get smarter.

I know this is a stupid and dangerous way to think, but a part of me rebels at the idea. For some reason, part of me believes that education is for the ignorant and that the teachers are, by definition, enlightened. My brain knows this is not true; my heart does not.

The late American magician, Eugene Burger, said that the task of the teacher is for his students to surpass him. "I don't want students to always be beneath my level," he said, and that strikes me as being profoundly true and extremely humble.

The American actor Michael Jai White once said that he loves to be wrong because it presents an opportunity for enlightenment.

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A while ago, I read a magazine article about how we are most likely wrong about most of the things we believe. Even some of the things that we are "absolutely certain of", the things that we would bet our very lives on. So many of our ideas are just castles build on the proverbial clouds.

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My favourite Saturday Night Live character is Stuart Smalley, who was portrayed by the American comedian, Al Franken. Stuart Smalley is a "caring nurturer" who has participated in several 12-step programs, though he is not a licensed therapist. Smalley isn't very smart and is woefully naive, but that doesn't stop him from doing his best to help people. 

In a discussion about the character, Franken explained that he created that character to communicate an essential truth, which is that you can learn things from people who are not as smart as you.

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If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. You're not going to grow by having people fawn all over you and basking in your brilliance, you grow by taking yourself to the next level.

At a magic conference in Montreal about 15 years ago, I found myself in a room with a bunch of magicians who had just started in the craft. I wowed them for a while, taught them some stuff, and then realized that I was in the wrong room. So I excused myself and went to another room where, by comparison, I was the rank beginner.

There, I saw seasoned magicians do things with playing cards that I didn't think were possible. I saw sleight-of-hand technicians, some a decade younger than me, manipulate cards like a well oiled machine.

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And now it seems to me that the smartest and most enlightened people are those who are overwhelmed by all the things they don't know. How strange that the discover of personal ignorance can be so liberating.

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