"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:12b
I just finished some additional education, and I have concluded that I am an expert in nothing. Seriously, absolutely nothing.
In fact, I feel stupider (see - that's not even a word I don't think, it should be more stupider). I can't exactly explain it, but it seems that all of this education has made me realize a few things that I didn't know before. Here's one:
I don't know very much.
I know, brilliant, right? But true. Methinks that the net result of higher education is to simply remind the student that there is more to know than you will ever imagine. As well, you could take ten lifetimes and still not scratch the surface of full knowledge. The expansion of knowledge and information in our day and age is exponentially more than virtually all of known history combined had to offer. Try keeping up with that.
Here's another one:
I now know that I don't know very much.
If you are thinking that this one is the same as the first one - look again. The first statement states fact. The second one states learning.
At the very least, I want to live there. Knowing what I don't know. Until you arrive there in some degree (never fully, since we can't possibly realize all that we don't know), you won't have a very high ceiling on learning. Relax.....you don't have to be the expert at everything.....in fact, if you are, everybody's on to you. (As a long aside, there was this guy I knew, not very well but well enough, who was an expert in everything - or so he thought. I promise - you name the conversation and he would tell you everything you ever wanted to know about it. Law? Sure, he had a spare gavel. Sports? Yep, knew the stats of Babe Ruth's grandmother's cousin on his father's side. Politics? Well, he probably wrote some speeches as a ghost writer while in the Rose Garden. Friends? Well, that one was a stumper........he didn't really have any. Wonder of wonders...............).
The key takeaway for me is this - greater learning ought to develop greater humility. It seems that the writer of Ecclesiastes landed there (although I would grant you that he started out pretty depressed - for a while I thought he might even make Nietzsche look hopeful). This was a guy who knew alot about alot of things, but ended up realizing that what he knew was miniscule compared to the knowledge and wisdom of the Creator.
I hope that is the case with me, because learning is not really the secret to great living, as best I can tell. Learning just opens the door to increase humility, and from humility......wisdom is born.
