one must educate oneself
All your problems stem from a lack of knowledge. I came to this conclusion in 2017 after having several dozen discussions with my friend David.
He and I talked about wealth inequality, job loss from automation, and several other ailments facing modern society and we kept landing on the same root cause: people suffer because they fail to adapt. Adaptation is possible when you continue to learn and challenge yourself. If you’re too comfortable and rest on your laurels, the ever-changing world will speed past your current abilities.
Your abilities are what allow you to solve your problems. If you visit Paris, fall in love with their bread, and want to replicate the french baguette at home, the only thing stopping you is the sufficient knowledge to do so. You gain that knowledge through reading, talking to bakers, watching YouTube videos, and actually attempting to make bread. Once you learn how to do it, the only difference between Present You and Past You is the secret dark arts of french bread making (aka acquired knowledge). This rule applies equally to bread making as it does to becoming a bronco buster, or whatever desire currently pulling at your heart strings.
But whenever I find myself preaching the gospel of "better yourself, educate yourself” I sense a more pragmatic part of me countering with “stop it with the tone-deaf sermon.” People are tired. Our jobs are demanding, the kids need to be fed, the gutters need cleaning, our bodies require exercise, we have to save for retirement, the hampers full of laundry, bills are coming due—the demands of daily life don’t leave much room for “self-education.” Enough with the naive idealism.
And this is true. In fact, I think this pragmatic voice lives in all of us. We all know we should be picking up a book, instead of our phones, but we just can’t help ourselves—the cheap dopamine from our touchscreens is just too delicious. When you’re tired, things that are good for you aren’t as appetizing. Reading a book or “educating yourself” sounds like taxes or going to the dentist—we’d rather not. But that’s only because our early experience of education has warped the word.
For most of us, education means school. The place you schlepped to for the formative years of your life. Those buildings and schedules full of classes you were never interested in, with evaluation criteria that you despised, and required reading that felt like pulling teeth.
That early life experience likely tainted the idea of educating yourself as something you could enjoy. “Enjoyment” only happened after your homework was done and it meant leisure, but that’s where we’ve been led astray. Your downtime doesn’t have to be scrolling your phone, playing video games, or drinking mojitos on the beach, it can be working on a project, or learning a new skill, or reading a thought-provoking book. These activities are satiating and good for the soul, they’re nutrient-dense and a form of self-healing—they’ll leave you better off.
Why? Because new knowledge will make you adaptable to the changing contours of life. “A tree that won’t bend easily breaks in storms.”1 When you continuously learn and challenge yourself, you remain flexible, and flexibility is strength2.
Imagine, in your mind’s eye, a frail world-weary man. Their once-supple frame now moving with hesitant, creaky steps. Their spine contorted from years of holding a bad posture. This man dismisses new trends with the wave of a gnarled hand. This anachronistic creature is the embodiment of your soul when you stay stubborn for too long. Your once nimble spirit now sclerotic as the world leaves you behind.
The antidote to this Ghost-of-Christmas-Yet-to-Come is regular self-improvement. A constant cycle of death and rebirth like a phoenix soaring out of the ashes. Education is not school, it’s the creator of the sprightly You.
So, “tone-deaf sermon” aside, bake some bread, educate yourself, solve your problems.
Be anew.
Yours,
-Rahul
P.S. a reminder you can reply directly to oldmanrahul@substack.com, or you can tweet me @oldmanrahul about this edition. Thanks for reading and supporting my writing :)
And strength is youth.