Education (Trade the Magic for Facts)

"i am questioning my education,
is my education who i am now?"
-Pearl Jam

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what makes us who we are on a day-to-day basis?

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i woke up today thinking about the question and what it means to us. all of us.

individually. as a group.

and i thought, i don't know.

so i thought, staring up at the white nothingness of my ceiling.

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but, thinking about it today i really have to say that i believe it is our imaginations that make us who we are. i am also, slowly, starting to believe our educations break down the walls of our castles in the mind. our ability to say, looking up at the clouds passing overhead, "that one looks like a turtle".

"a bird."

"a castle in the sky".

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what am i trying to say, what point am i trying to get across?

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i think that the further things come in the world, the more we learn, individually or as a group, the less we can create (or imagine) anything new.

it's like when you are very young, and you look up at the night sky, at the full moon, and you wonder if the moon is following you over head.

then, just a few years later, you decipher that magic. realizing it's a trick, you trade it in for fact, and by doing so you trade in the magic of your imagination.

you lessen yourself through learning.

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i look at friends who are graduating, and what career paths they have chosen, be it business, education, or entertainment, and i just see them looking blankly at cubicles.

at white walls. and monotone.

monotony.

you get to a point where education is just a way for you to make money. yet along the way, no one seems to ask at what cost is the price you pay for losing what makes you you?

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you're told what to do, and ask no questions.

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i am not saying education is bad. i want to teach.

i just think that it lessens us to a point.

every semester i delve deeper into literature, into academic writing, and i find myself less able to come up with poems, with stories, with anything creative.

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i don't know. i just want to look at the clouds and know that it isn't just randomized.

i want to know what i see is a fucking bear, not just accumulated moisture.

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12:21