Thanks for the genuine thoughts and reply. I leave it according to your interpretation! I think it could be summed up as the eventual realization that to study others' thoughts and teachings, no matter how revered, is only the beginning step to discovery in any aspect of life. Thanks for sharing that anecdote. I feel that the gulf of humanity's ignorance is extremely wide, yet what we do unveil is no small feat. The sort of pretentious exclusion you mentioned contributes to my calculated contempt for many aspects of academia. I prefer self-education, private education, homeschooling, these sorts of approaches. Hands on is the best, without the extraneous concepts and presumptuousness.
Thanks again for great input and sharing the lines that struck you @kilbride!
I do enjoy the really intense learning that comes from classes or schooling sometimes, though I'm technically a 'bad' student usually because I have a suuuper low tolerance for pedantic tasks lol. But, yeah, I was sorely disappointed when I went to college that so many people were just there fronting or checking boxes on a to-do list "career path". And of course! I write poetry myself, (although much more intermittently)- I know how much energy goes into selecting each word, and how many lines are just stand-alone pieces within a larger piece. It's always interesting to see what parts really resonate with others and how it differs from us.