The Museum You Carry
Picture each individual having an invisible museum.
In some galleries there is a lot of childhood: the odor of chalk dust, the first time you ride a bicycle, a grandmother’s laugh, and a favorite song which is remembered long after the lyrics have disappeared.
In other rooms you can find careers, heartbreaks, triumphs, mistakes, and ordinary Tuesday afternoons which in some way have become unforgettable.
Most people think that when one reaches a certain age the museum shuts down. Although the exhibits are sometimes dusted, no new sections are ever constructed.
They are wrong.
A life devoid of learning is not empty just because it has no information; it is empty since it ceases to expand.
Why Lifelong Learning Matters
Lifelong learning is more concerned about avoiding the idea of becoming a fixed and finished individual.
Each new skill, idea, language, friendship, or point of view adds one more room to the museum; the building expands and as it does, so does the person who walks through its rooms.
Learning keeps us safe from one of the subtlest dangers of life: certainty. For certainty can turn into habit, habit into routine, and routine in turn into a world that becomes smaller and smaller every year.
On the other hand, curiosity works in the opposite way; it makes us remember that every confident opinion should from time to time be questioned and that every familiar landscape contains details which we have missed on hundreds of occasions.
Learning also alters the way we relate to time.
Children think that the future will be surprising to them. Many adults, on the other hand, expect that tomorrow will be similar to yesterday.
The learning person experiences things in a different way: on Monday they might come across an unfamiliar recipe, on Wednesday they will learn the names of the birds in the neighborhood, and on Saturday they will find out the history of the old bridge which had been crossed thousands of times without anyone noticing.
Novelty makes time seem to last longer. A year spent in discovery seems longer than one spent going over the same conversations and routines.
It also makes disappointment more helpful.
Though failure is painful, the person who is learning then poses odd questions once the pain has gone away. What have I learned from this? Which assumption has been proven wrong?
What should I try again? Difficult experiences are treated as field notes rather than as final judgments. Resilience is basically curiosity dressed in work clothes.
Quiet learning also has a way of transforming the relationships involved. When people are curious, they ask better questions since they truly wish to find surprising answers. Instead of quickly offering their own versions of events, they listen.
They understand that each stranger is like an untouched book and that each old friend still has some chapters to be written. As a result, conversations take on the character of exploration rather than of performance.
The biggest gift is that learning enables identity to remain flexible.
People often give their name by referring to a past achievement—such as being a teacher, an engineer, a musician, a parent, or an athlete. While these descriptions are important, they can turn into constraints if clung to too firmly.
Those who continue to learn throughout their lives have the right to once again become beginners. For example, a retired accountant takes up the study of watercolor. A doctor learns to do woodwork.
A grandmother begins to study astronomy. A teenager studies philosophy. They are not giving up who they have always been; rather, they are refusing to accept that they have already found the final form of themselves.
Ways to Engage in Lifelong Learning
The best classrooms are seldom obvious.
Try to collect questions rather than answers and keep a notebook that contains only things that you do not know. For example, why do pigeons walk the way they do? Who was it who named the streets in your town? And where does tap water go before it gets to your kitchen? Spend one week following up on a single question. Curiosity becomes stronger as a result of being pursued.
Study a neighborhood as an archaeologist would study ruins—walk the same route every month and look for small changes such as new plants, repaired sidewalks, different shop fronts, changing graffiti, and unfamiliar sounds. It is in this way that familiar places turn into laboratories for observation.
Learn useful things from complete strangers. Stay next to the mechanic while his engine is open. Ask the baker why bread reacts differently in humid weather. Observe a gardener trimming the roses.
In every job there is a lifetime of unspoken knowledge waiting to be discovered by someone who is willing to ask.
Set up learning traditions for each season. In the spring, spot the wildflowers. In the summer, read a work by an author from a different culture. In the autumn, study a forgotten aspect of local history. In the winter, become skilled at a practical household ability. The calendar then serves as a curriculum.
Treat your own life as though it belonged to a different person. Go through your old journals, photographs, letters, and family stories once again.
When interviewing your relatives, show the same curiosity as a documentary film maker. Memory is something that deserves to be studied, and all family archives have secrets.
Try being a complete beginner on purpose. Each year select an activity that requires you to be incompetent on the first day yourself. For example, you could choose pottery, bird calls, chess, salsa dancing, calligraphy, or watch repair.
Humility is a teaching skill that is often undervalued, and people who are beginners are more likely to notice details that experts tend to overlook.
Step outside the boundaries of your area of intellectual interest. If history is what you have on your shelves, then have a look at a book about fungi.
If you are familiar with science, try reading poetry out loud. If novels are what you usually read in the evenings, spend a month studying architecture or music theory. Insights that are unexpected can be gained from such unusual combinations.
In the end, try the most traditional method of learning: paying attention.
Observe how the angle of the afternoon light changes in that room. Take the time to learn the names of the trees which shade your street.
Pay close attention to someone whose experiences have little in common with your own. Read the inscriptions on monuments that are forgotten. Memorize poems.
Knowledge doesn’t always come with academic robes; at other times it is seen wearing muddy boots, carries a toolbox, sings in a different language, or shows up in a normal conversation and thus alters the way you view the world.
The invisible museum will never be completed; each day brings with it another empty room that needs an exhibit. The only fee required is curiosity, and the doors stay open so long as we decide to go in.
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