Keeping the Dream Alive

Da Vinci & Company recently received this letter from a lifelong learner. He has definitely been walking beside da Vinci and his band of scholars. So today we thank him for sharing his journey and wish him the continuing "pleasure of finding things out."

From Anonymous Lifelong Learner:

"I have often read and heard that the older you get in life, the more reflective you become. Thoughts of what you have done or wanted to do with your life. What your interests were when you were young and how they have changed now. What drove you to do what you did and what drives you now. What did happen and what you wish might have happened. All thoughts such as these come flowing through your mind. Both the good and the bad are among them.

Such thinking seems to be common. It has led many to make drastic changes in their older years, including the refocus of what is important to them. While some find it more possible to make such changes, others only dream because they lack the resources that make new directions impossible. Regardless, such dreaming is a common trait of mankind, no matter who we are or where we live.

Since childhood, the one thing that has remained in my life is my strong desire to learn, to know and to understand. I grew up with in a family of four, mom, dad and a sister who was eight years older than me. I was born in 1942 during the War. Many of my first memories are about living on an air base and learning about all things related to the War and how it affected everyone one around me.

As a young boy, I remember the Movietone News Clips that gave news about world events, as Europe and the U.S. returned to “normal.” Our lives were changed forever. The world was totally different from anything anyone had known before.

I grew up being basically left to myself. Mom, Dad and my sister had their own lives with work, school and other interests--all of which rarely involved or interested me. Most of my time was spent alone or with my dog, exploring the cotton patches and irrigation ditches around the small West Texas town I lived in. It was a world all my own--one without any friends my own age.

Going to School was a chore for me. I felt they never taught anything I liked or really wanted to know about. I’m sure this was not much different for many kids. But the one thing I did do well; and enjoyed more than anything was learning to read. Mainly because of the “freedom” it gave me to pursue my own interests. My second love was sports. Both were my “saviors”, for sadly, my early school experience left little positive memories.

My parents bought a couple of sets of encyclopedias which included the “yearbook” for each past year. One of my most enjoyable things to do was to climb up into the top of a large closet, turn the light on and to look at all the pictures in them and to dream about what the words said, where they were taken, and what might have been happening. I spent hours alone doing this. This was a world apart. It was “my” world, one that allowed me to be alone with my thoughts and my dreams. While it didn’t satisfy my desire to learn, to know, and to understand, it started a lifetime desire that has never left me.

For some reason, I was more interested in learning about everything, what others did, what they learned, and experienced. I was especially interested in exploration and discovery. Instead of doing the exploring and discovering like others, I was content to live it through their books. This became my way of exploration and discovery. I found this to be enough because I had so many widespread interests I couldn’t possibly actually do it all. I wanted to learn and know about everything.

Several years ago, I became interested in the life of Richard Feynman, one of our best well-known scientists and physicist. I read everything I could get my hands on, about his life and his discoveries that made worldwide impacts in scientific knowledge.

One of the most profound things I learned was about his early childhood, where his dad instilled a lifelong desire of learning in him. He was interested in most everything and he said he found pleasure in finding things out. Later, it led to the title of one of the many books by and about him, called “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” I was moved by this. I had never been able to identify or put a name on the compelling drive I have. Clearly, it came to me. It was the pleasure of finding things out. I am sure that many others who have read about him, have had a similar reaction.

Richard Feynman also mentioned that as a child, he had trouble understanding many of the books he read. This frustrated him, but he thought if he read over and over, he could begin to understand them. So this was his method of learning, just doggedly reading again and again until he got the meaning. In one of his books he talked about teaching this same principle to his younger sister, Joan. She later became a learned scientist in her own right.

As most have found, you constantly learn by reading the life and experiences of others and how well their experiences helped to identify your own. I certainly have.

Thinking back over my early education has led me to think about my first bicycle trip to our small public library. It was so overwhelming--seeing all those books and wondering what they were about and what was in them. I can remember getting every Hardy Boy book they had and reading one after another until I had finished the whole series. I was so disappointed, so I went back to the first one, reading them all over again.

One day, while at the Library, someone told me there were individuals who had their own books at home, in their own “library”. Such a possibility had never occurred to me. Your very own books, you own library! This became my goal, to have my own books and my own library, where I could read them anytime and as often as I wanted. This goal has always been with me. All through the years, I have spent hours in libraries and bookstores. Early on I was only dreaming of the day when I might own some of the very books I read.

Like many, over the years, my finances have allowed the purchase of occasional books until today, that childhood dream is a reality. Currently, our library contains over 4,000 books and continues to grow, until now the constant dilemma is where to put them. So now my dream will continue to be “a place to put them”, as my “problem” continues to grow. Oh well, when it comes to books and learning, knowing, understanding, I will always be a dreamer in my world of exploration and discovery.

While books are important, finding a lifetime partner who had, and continues to have, the same childhood desire that we can share is indeed a dream come true. So, I am blessed with the fulfillment of two dreams, a loving wife to share this adventure and our many friends--our books. So two out of three is not bad, we will continue dreaming about the third. But in essence like so many of you, we do have a place, in our hearts and minds, and that is what counts!"