Tell me and I will not forget
Show me and I may remember
Involve me and I will understand
- Xunzi, Confucian philosopher
A while back, I was having a conversation with my Shodo teacher about learning and taking shortcuts and he said, “Having a teacher is the ultimate shortcut.” I realized that if one is lucky enough to have a teacher then they have someone who will hopefully guide them in the right direction and inspire them to reach great heights. Ideally, a good teacher can also increase learning times and ensure correctness. Without a guide, we have to constantly motivate ourselves and lead us in the wrong direction which can slow us down and cause us to learn things incorrectly. I use the word “guide” because in the end teachers can only guide us; they can’t do the work for us and we really can’t be taught anything unless we want to. Having someone to guide us really only accounts for a small but important percentage of our learning. We teach ourselves because learning is a function of our actions and so a large percentage of learning is attributed to what we do and our mindsets. To hear the words and see the teacher’s techniques, one has to go to class. Sword training can teach us decisiveness and discernment but to learn it, we have to pick it up and practice. Aikido training can make us better human beings, but we have to practice it to gain the benefit from it. We have to don’t and can’t know everything and that’s why having a teacher to guide us is the “ultimate shortcut.” We can see that because we alone have to put in the work and thus we are really teaching ourselves but the paradox is that we need others to guide us to do it well. In the end, our teachers can guide us but ultimately we have to learn it for ourselves. We can’t be taught anything, but we can learn everything and that is because a warrior trains themselves.
Today’s goal: Today is the last day of summer. Don’t waste the day.