The Art of Learning

I've gotten in the habit of using Google Calendar, mostly because it's easy, colorful, syncs well, and displays pretty images.  If anyone was curious, I just discovered the complete list of Google Event Images, like these:

This is what I do with my "fun" employment these days.  However, here is the thing: how often do you take the time to actually figure out the ins and outs of an ap, device, program, game, etc.?  How often do you sit and read the instruction manual or actually learn about what you're using?  My grandfather does every time he buy something new (which is once a decade).  He sits with the instruction manual and reads every single word.  I'm not advocating that everyone do this, but maybe think about it.  In my lifetime, technological advancements have transpired so quickly, it has become normal to roll our eyes and sigh, "Ha - I have no idea how this works."  But my grandfather will explore and ask questions that I can't answer with asking Google first.

I believe that it's not expected that we go deep with knowing, unless you're getting your PhD - and even then, how much of learning is skimming?  But let's go back to just our present lives - there are so many devices that I use daily which I am no master of: my car, computer, iPhone, refrigerator, water heater, septic system, speaker, or my camera.  No wonder it's easy to feel a sense of disconnection with our world - we may hardly know much about how it came to be or operates.  We are often far removed from the process and receive the final product in our hands.

I recently purchased At Home by Bill Bryson.  The premise of the book is that he is going to explore history without leaving his home.  He contends that houses are, "amazingly complex repositories... whatever happens in the world, whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought over, eventually ends up - in one way or another - in your house... We are so used to having a lot of comfort in our lives, to being clean, warm, and well fed, that we forget how recent most of that is."

I sometimes think that the idea of knowledge is often too easily blended with the practicality of getting a job.  What about knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and exploring the backstory of the modern world we live in?  I wonder if that would help us become better stewards of it.  I know for myself, when I take the time (or am forced to take the time) to learn about something, I come away with a different appreciation of it.  I had never fully appreciated Ansel Adam's photography until I realized the camera he was using to capture these images, not to mention he himself developed the film and "filtered" the images in a dark room.  It wasn't until I saw a photo of him hiking - in what looked like sneakers - up a snowy mountainside with a huge camera on his back that it occurred to me the technological context of his photography.

Autumn Moon, the High Sierra from Glacier Point September 15, 1948

Moon and Half Dome 1960

Recently, we saw the Oscar Nominated Short Films for Animation.  Thinking about how we are born so blissfully open to the future reminds me of this character from World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt:

I imagine we walk around like the little girl does, in the face of complicated technology, stating, "Cirrrrcle" and "Wiggle wiggle wiggle!"  Imagining everything within our grasp being a result of history, makes me wonder where to begin learning about it.

What a rich, comfortable, and fascinating world we live in.