Education In Sympathy

The world would be a bet­ter place if edu­ca­tion required that you: work on an off­shore oil rig for six months, be in the mil­i­tary for a cou­ple of years, work on a farm for at least two sea­sons, build a house, work in a hos­pi­tal, drive a truck, work road con­struc­tion, weld pipe, load bag­gage on air­planes, wash dishes for a major restau­rant, work retail sales, and do as many other real jobs as pos­si­ble. Aca­d­e­mics should include a wide range of top­ics so that you would know a lit­tle bit about a lot of things and a whole lot about a few things.

Noth­ing beats start­ing life with your feet on the ground. Thank God that Jesus was a car­pen­ter first. Real things and a work­able phi­los­o­phy of life go hand-in-hand. Noth­ing beats an edu­ca­tion in real­ity. Fan­tasies and air cas­tles are fun — they even dove­tail into for­mal phi­los­o­phy. The real ques­tions of life have to do with whether you know how to change a flat, sad­dle a horse, change a dia­per, cook a meal, or do your own laundry.

The world has more than its share of arm­chair crit­ics (notice that they are sit­ting and not really doing). Humil­ity comes from expe­ri­ence in real things. Bro­ken rela­tion­ships, finan­cial losses, health prob­lems, being mis­un­der­stood, and even being envied or hated have their place in a com­plete emo­tional life edu­ca­tion. Unless you have tasted the bit­ter­sweets of life, you are not quite ready to cook up life recipes for oth­ers. There is a rea­son that there are more athe­ists in lit­er­ary depart­ments than in the hard sci­ences. One depart­ment is closer to the earth than the other. Both have their places in life. Truth and real­ity are tightly connected.

An edu­ca­tion that leads to sym­pa­thy is the best one out there — even if it does not make much money. Earth-school includes more dirt than paper. Walk a mile in another person’s shoes and see if your judg­ments do not soften — even to the point of learn­ing how to cheer them on just as they are.