e

Learning is incredible. A couple of things happened last week that are worth commenting on. First, I came across a video out that’s well worth watching if you have the opportunity. Forget the opportunity part, you should make time for it. A “six and three-quarters” year-old boy asks Neil deGrasse Tyson (recognizable from PBS shows about space) “What is the meaning of life?” Neil’s response is simply wonderful. You can watch the video here <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/17/neil-degrasse-tyson-meaning-of-life-video_n_6489894.html> but allow me to provide a very brief and inadequate summary. Most people think that the meaning of life is something we can find. You can’t. It’s something you create. Something each and every one of us creates. And to find out what the meaning of life is, you have to learn. Explore the world around you to understand nature (to which I’d add people, cultures and yourself) and you’re on your way. Sometimes this is a messy process, but if you keep at it, your life will have meaning and you may do some good in the long run. His delivery of the answer is fantastic (as he rolls on the floor to ask someone when the last time was they caught snowflakes in their mouth), and it’s well worth watching.

Second, I had quite a mental shake-up (in a good way) that got me thinking about learning. As I tell nearly everyone I meet who is about to go to university, a university is the opportunity to broaden your horizons. It’s a place to learn about things you don’t even know about. Explore the learning opportunities it has to offer, and don’t treat it like a trade school. It seems like not too many people listen to me, but it worked for me. The thing is, once you leave that environment, it’s hard to keep that breadth of learning opportunities around you. Life wants you to focus. But my mind doesn’t always want to.

One of the things I do to bring breadth into my learning is to listen to a podcast, In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg. It’s a 50-minute BBC Radio 4 broadcast that covers, on a weekly basis, one topic in some detail. The topics, however, cover a broad spectrum of learning. I usually put on a podcast as I go out for a good walk and its pretty much done by the end of 3 miles. To give you an idea of what gets covered, in the past year I’ve listened to: Truth (philosophy); Behavioral Ecology (science); Zen (religion); Kafka’s The Trial (literature and biography); Nuclear Fusion (science); Rudyard Kipling (literature and biography); The Battle of Talas (history [a relatively insignificant battle other than it marked the furthest western expansion of China’s Tang Dynasty and the furthest eastward expansion of the Muslim empire in 751 AD]); Julius Caesar (history and biography); The Sun (science); Photosynthesis (science); Stabo’s Geographica (geography and history) . . . you get the point. I go wherever Melvyn wants to take me and I learn something new. Even when I know a bit about what they’re talking about, I learn something new. I’ve listened of the podcast off-and-on for about half a dozen years now and only once or twice have I been bored or disinterested.

So last week I was getting ready to go out for a walk. I’d finished up some work and had a break, it was beautiful outside and I needed to get my body moving. As I grabbed my phone, I checked to see what was next on my list - “e” - I pressed the download button and got changed. As I put on my headphones and started walking up the driveway I pressed play with every intention of listening to a podcast about energy (because any well educated person is familiar with Einstein’s e=mc2 formula and of course that was what the podcast was about . . . ) and they started talking about the mathematical “e” known as Euler’s number I got mental whiplash. Wow, not what I expected! Time to learn something really new! It starts out with 2.718 and goes on forever. It’s an irrational number, a transcendental number (mathematical, not religious transcendental, though I’m sure some have meditated over Euler’s number) and apparently is found all over nature. It’s part of an equation that some have called the most beautiful equation ever written (in part because it contains 5 of the most significant numbers in mathematics and three of the most important processes in mathematics [or is that 3 numbers and 5 processes?]). And to be quite honest, I know I’ll never quite its importance. But much like Pi, it is an important number.

And for some reason I feel like my life is better knowing that “e” is out there.

This week’s show is “Phenomenology.” Something I know a little bit about and am interested in learning more. Now I have to find a way to make time for a walk!