The Life-Long Learning Lurgy

Intro

I have an illness. The symptoms and causes are murky, at best. Victims are often found surrounded by dusty volumes of other people's thoughts. Lips of the sufferers often drip with platitudes and concepts borrowed from the dead. Eyes frequently rip through print, seeking for something new. Other symptoms may include strange imaginations, a penchant for things distant in space and time, and occasional dissatisfaction with the way things are.

Being a life-long learner isn't my problem; knowing when to quit is. I cannot relate to people who need to be urged to be life-long learners. I'm currently working on "the history of everything" project I made for myself... I'm collecting the history of (pretty literally) everything, including my own family history, and putting it into a usable format. I have hundreds of pages of facts, untold thousands of names, and new ideas and notions that I'd never had before. It's fun. It's horrifying.

The Seven and a Half Habits

So, to the actual purpose of today's blog is to analyze the 7.5 habits of life-long learners and evaluate my strengths and weaknesses. Here are the habits:

1. Goals: Begin with end in mind


2. Accept responsibility for own learning


3. See problems as obstacles


4. Have confidence in self as competent, effective learner


5. Get a learning toolbox


6. Use technology to my advantage


7. tutor/mentor others


8. 1/2 play

Ok... my normal way to deal with this question is to analyze each point, but this is a blog, not a novel. So, my strengths and weaknesses... Strengths: I'm not bragging, but I'm confident in most of these. (Does that mean #4 is my strength?) Weaknesses: I'm horrible at setting written goals. I'm much better at doing than writing about doing things. It doesn't seem to get in my way, so I'm kinda unapologetic. Truthfully, I'm kinda bad at playing. I love to play, I just don't make it a priority.

That's why learning is a sickness for me. It's like a hunger or thirst that cannot be filled. It drives and grinds me onward, and tears down the psyche. It can be nearly debilitating, but has the strange side-effect of renewing the eyes, so every day the world looks a little different. That's why I'm not trying too hard to find the cure.