What can we ask of our self?

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A surveyor carries with her a tripod upon which to view the landscape for the purpose of plotting its topography. She mounts on this tripod the instruments with which to measure reality. I wish to use this analogy as a means to clarify my comprehension of the relationship between reality and me. The three legged tripod represent the three intellectual phases of a person’s life. One leg represents the early years of institutional education. The second leg represents the twenty years between the early years and those intellectually productive years represented by the third leg. Institutionalized education prepares us to become workers capable of supporting our self and our family. After schooling is finished we have many responsibilities focused primarily around job and family. But this period is one where our natural curiosity is still alive and wherein it is necessary to begin the process of learning those matters that were not part of institutional education. This twenty year period does not generally leave a great deal of time for self-actualizing learning but it is necessary to keep curiosity alive and to build a foundation of basic intellectual needs and to discover our intellectual talents. I think that this period is vital, for without careful utilization of this period we will have little curiosity or caring for intellectual matters later in life when we could be productively engaged in self-actualization through self-learning. I suspect that if the young person does not take careful advantage of these years immediately following the completion of schooling they will have seriously threatened any significant intellectual growth following mid life because curiosity and caring will have atrophied. Is it too much to ask of our self that we engage intellectually in our world by turning to self-learning to a significant level? I think we should do this.