My Book World #1: ‘Your Answers Questioned’
Sunset in Krabi Province, Southern Thailand
Welcome to my wee corner of the digital universe! I live for three reasons: to play the game of life, to be an observer of the game of life, and to learn the game of life.
It’s like I’m at the cinema, and I am the projector, the movie, the scriptwriter, and the moviegoer all rolled into one!
I alternate between modes: I learn to live and live to learn, I learn to play and play to learn, I learn to observe and observe to learn. Each mode helps me be better in the other modes, and in this way I can optimise my life according to my own abilities. It means I’m a lifelong learner, and I find this allows me to evolve in my journey of life with the minimum of stress and strife.
One thing I’ve done since I can remember is read. When I were a lad, back in the 70s, I read prolifically. For Christmas and birthday presents, whenever relatives asked me what I wanted, I always just replied, ‘Book tokens please’. I think a £5 book token would get me four books in those days, and if I got a few tokens then I had a whole load more books to read. I always had a book on the go. Happy days.
I progressed chronologically, roughly speaking, from the Jungle Book and The Cat in the Hat books, to Enid Blyton books of magical adventures and tales which fired up my boyhood imagination no end, to Wilbur Smith books as I hit my teens.
Throughout my childhood I had many other books, and at one point my Mum bought me an entire set of encyclopaedias. I used to randomly pick a letter, then randomly open that volume to different pages and learn new things. I knew nearly all the facts of the world, all the flags of the nations, all the football knowledge, and so much more.
I recall one of the last novels I read, when I was about 17, was Shogun by James Clavell, which was an epic tale from ancient Japan, from memory having nearly 1000 pages. It was literally unputdownable and I think I read it in a week!
Then the pub years took over, and reading stopped for a while as beers and music and mates took centre stage (beer and girlfriends were a bad mix, so I never tried for both!).
But when it resumed it was mostly non-fiction. My thirst for learning about and understanding our world was completely rekindled when I was 27 and travelled to Thailand, hopefully for a year, but it ended up with me accidentally emigrating there.
And since then, which was in 1991, I’ve read heaps of books. The main genres have been travel, geopolitics, modern and not-so-modern history, psychology, spirituality, health, nutrition, sport and music.
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What I’m going to do in each of these blog posts in the ‘My Book World’ series is quote a small bit from one of the books on my shelf, and then share with you my own thoughts. I will then invite you to reflect upon things yourself, and do please add your thoughts in the Comments below each blog post. In the following ‘My Book World’ post I shall then offer you my own thoughts.
So, being a rebel educator who loves to ask questions and challenge my students to challenge their own beliefs, and to really think about the nature of things, my first choice is from a book called ‘Your Answers Questioned’. It’s by Osho, although in reality Osho never wrote any books, as all his books are transcripts of him speaking during his life. I just love this title!
“Each day brings its own problems, its own challenges and each moment brings its own questions. And if you have ready-made answers in your head you will not be able to even listen to the question. You will be so full of your answer, you will be incapable of listening. You will not be available.”
Because I’m a language teacher, and I teach language teachers how to teach communication, the number one skill I picked up in life was listening to people, and I mean really listening: not interrupting them, doing my best to interpret what they are trying to tell me, being empathic, lending an ear for those who need to share their problems, and so on.
And of the myriad things I learn from being a keen listener is that most people in life are terrible listeners!! I don’t mean this in a judgmental way, just that it’s a fact of life, and that’s why I like this quote from Osho’s book.
TASK: You check it out yourself, go out there and observe people talking together, watch interviews on the internet, on the TV, even watch yourself and those you are talking to. See what you find out!
What I’ve observed, increasingly through my life, is what I call a ‘culture of certainty’, where people are keen to let you know they know, and that they certainly know for certain!
Now if you (generic ‘you’, not you personally!) already know something to be ‘true’ and I then tell you something that’s different, you will reject what I’m saying as wrong, because you already know! No exploration, no discussion, no effort to better understand the other person and their thoughts, no journey of learning. As Osho says in the quote, you are ‘unavailable’. Conflict and confrontation often ensue, and negative vibes permeate the airwaves.
In this way you remain stuck, and you will find antagonism more than harmony in your life. You are blocking your own evolution. You are hiding behind what you believe to be true knowledge, and you are closed to anything new.
I’d like to leave you with a couple of questions to contemplate over, and in my next post I shall offer you my thoughts. So, have a good old ponder! Add your ideas in the Comment section below if you feel the urge! Till the next time, happy living!
Why do you think people are so keen to be seen to ‘know’ things?
Why do you think people in general are poor listeners? Or do you disagree with this?
When we are communicating with other people, in what ways can disagreement and opposing views or ideas benefit us?
