Is there a correlation between a contented mental state and inner peace? Of course, there must be. Recently, I was reading Dr. William Durant’s book The History of Philosophy. It is a pleasant bed-time read for the layman. He was touching on FredrickNietzsche and his frustrations with life. Out of this tortured mind, however, came a corpus of work that continues to influence epistemology (1) and metaphysics (2) to this day. There are numerous examples in history of the angst-ridden artist dying at an early age of drug, alcohol or sexual abuse. It is, I believe, the standard and accepted metaphor for the gifted mind: brilliance, suffering and, ultimately, death. An article in the Guardian Newspaper entitled Young, Gifted and Likely to Suffer refutes this paradigm. The author, psychologist Dr. Joan Freeman, “explodes this myth.” She has found that talented people are, in fact, similar to ordinary people, but with extraordinary gifts and thus enhanced opportunity. They need not squander this cadeau nor, conversely, ensure that it achieves its ultimate expression.

“She is keen to lay to rest the stereotype: that gifted children are tortured, unable to fit in and have emotional problems. In her book, it seems that those who did have problems socially, did so because the parents decided this is how they should be, that their gifted children had to ‘conform to type’ by having few, or no friends. The children ‘whose parents had identified them as gifted had emotional problems far more frequently than identified but unlabelled children.’So would it be better not to label them? ‘It’s difficult, because you have to do some identification to give them what they need to reach their potential.’

Freeman isn’t sure why there seem to be more gifted children than before, but hazards a guess. ‘With IT, (the Internet) children have an active way of learning. You think in different ways.’

What advice does she have for a gifted child? ‘Relax and enjoy life, but hard work is important if you want to realize your potential. To some extent you’ve got to follow your heart’: and for parents? ‘The love parents give should be without strings, not dependent on achievement. Learn your child. Don’t send them out to name flowers—go out with them. Discover things together. This is particularly important in the early years. It’s much more effective to learn with them.’”

The academic world is in a deep quandary. It does not know how to deal with the modern, curious mind that learns in a totally new way. It possesses a youthful intelligence filled with images that do not request imagination or inventiveness. They are “empty vessels” in a way that has not been seen since the Middle Ages when Gothic religious edifices were evocative of God: think of the Cologne Cathedral. Our system tells them that the test will question your command of the knowledge presented in the class: not true. “The test will simply test the test,” not the students’ synthesis of the information. In other word the examination does not need critical thinking, though it claims that it does. But it is this skill that will finally allow us to achieve the elusive inner peace in life. The great politician Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) leaves us with a thought: Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it: From Robin Sharma — Seriously Exceptional Work (SEW), always do your best. (Parts of this essay were first published in 2014)

A closing thought: There is a pedagogical disconnection that  leaves many “kids,” worldwide, with a sense of emptiness and an intrinsic feeling of failure. They quit school or quit life. (3) Thinking back to the Academy of Plato, the approach to cognition was more personalized and more inquisitive of the student’s comprehension. Given the numbers of present-day student populations this would appear to be impossible and impractical. But, given our technological expertise, this is more a lack of the formal academic community really wanting to embrace change than a systemic impossibility. We will have to intertwine ourselves with this change whether we want to or not: too many children are “falling between the cracks” to a life of failure or criminality.

To sum up: this week, we spoke about achieving inner peace.

To be noted: An old Tibetan proverb — The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others.

Just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erXG9vnN-GI&ab_channel=LieneAndretaKalnciema

For reflection: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIIF60Rr720&ab_channel=JasonGregory

This week on your brisk stroll, please ponder the role of education in your life.

Every day look for something magical and beautiful.

Don’t be a wage slave – critical thinking is great!

Quote: How can I really move onto the path of real knowledge? There are things that I do not understand, but I must try to garnish comprehension.

Footnotes:

1) Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge.

2) Metaphysics is concerned with the world and its understanding: What is ultimately there and (if it reality exists) what is it like? 3) weforum.org