Louis Roney: Learning to learn

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing”– Benjamin Franklin

Ben Franklin’s words are a tall order, but like most of the things he left us they are reachable gems of logic. When a person who has lived a long life attempts to set down on paper his inventions worth reading, he should exercise a considerable degree of self-criticism. What have you done that was worth the effort? How well did you succeed in doing it? Do all the successes in your life add up to one big success?

We all know people who, for one reason or another, have never needed or wanted to accomplish anything noteworthy. Such people are often our favorite neighbors, friends and relatives, while some who live near us and who have won much acclaim, may remain distant.

The inspiration to make one’s life add up to something worthy is often inborn, but can certainly be helped by ones family and schooling. In the end, all our arguments seem to do no more than to reinforce our own prejudices. Education is in retrospect, not unlike a staircase. At the end of grammar school is a landing – likewise at the end of high school. College is on a different floor-level, and following a bachelor’s degree lays open territory for greater exploration of voluntary further education. The most valuable aspect of learning is learning how to learn; how to be the problem-solver of the myriad problems that life holds.

If you take calculus in college, are you going to employ calculus in your later life? For most probably not, but your brain will be better prepared to work on the many financial and other quandaries ahead. Every weight that you pick up strengthens the arm that you used in lifting it. “Use it or lose it” is a very apt, although worn, piece of advice. Having the potential in your mind to do something of value is like having money in the bank upon which you can draw to make desirable things happen.

Deciding how to use your mind’s contents is a nonstop activity during all your waking hours. Our recollection of dreams is something on the same order. Human wants are either specific: such as desiring a new automobile, or they are extended generally throughout life, such as wishing to increase ones knowledge.

I recently asked my b.w. if there was anything material that she wanted and does not have. She couldn’t think of a thing, nor could I, when she asked me the same question.

I have never been jealous of anybody else in my life. However, I have greatly wished that I had learned to speak more languages. Languages are doors that open into new countries full of exhilarating people and vistas. No one else can learn for me a language as a favor. He can, of course, teach me a language that I want to learn.

Even a child’s learning of table manners must often be propelled by parental energy. Girls learn to dance much quicker than boys because the desire in boys to dance may be harder to awaken.

What lies beyond the learning of something new is the spark that inspires: The idea of driving a car makes most boys very impatient to get their hands on the steering wheel. Cars represent a whole world of freedom to boys who reach driving age, a new world of adventure – and of danger, may we add!

Every freedom carries its own accompanying risks, and handling these risks employs personal judgment that we hope our kids will acquire adequately along the way.

I used to have a liberal acquaintance/friend who had the gall to tell me that my right-wing points of view were not worth hearing. We don’t talk much any more…

About Roney: Harvard’42—Distinguished Prof, Em.—UCF 2004 Fla. Alliance for the Arts award (Assisted by beautiful wife Joy Roney)