Pieces of a Jigsaw

No, I'm not becoming Jack the Ripper so do not fear. I just had so many things fall into place this week that I can only attribute it to hardwork, planning and a ton of luck. Good things are happening and I suppose that means I should continue striving for better and better results. Work, work. More work? Work, work. But lately I've been feeling abit "Peonish". Didn't even have a single day where I touched a video game. But however I did finish 4 novels from Sunday to Wednesday.

I had read the first 4 books of the Elminster Quintology, Makings of a Mage, Temptation of Elminster, Elminster in Myth Drannor and Elminster in Hell. I'm missing the book Elminster's Daughter. Which incidentally is the book that I had wanted to read the most. Oh well the first 4 books weren't too shoddy, I finally understood the way Ed Greenwood thinks and feels about Elminster. He's version of Elminster is one of a wily man who seems to get into the pants of almost every pretty magic user that crosses his path. I had this impression of Elminster as a person who was a in love with the goddess of magic Mystra. But obviously this didn't stop him from consorting with countless other sorceresses and mages along the 4 novels that I've devoured.

But I suppose I have some similarities with Elminster than I would like to admit. I associate myself very much with Elminster in the way I handle many situations. Firm but with good intentions. I can be nasty as well which usually spells alot of trouble for me and the person I'm nasty to. And after reading this Quintology on Elminster, it almost serves as a reflection of my own character. And yes, like all guys I do secretly wish I could consort with every hot gal in a position of power. I'm drawn to knowledge like Elminster was and seek to understand the reason behind the actions that befall upon his world. He understands most matters at a much deeper understanding and isn't afraid to play dumb to get the answers he cannot attain on his own.

And I apply this to the way that I study now in my course. I don't necessarily play dumb, but I'm always looking confident for a reason. It's usually because I'm not afraid to make mistakes during lessons. Why? Because by making a mistake, you draw out the correct answers from the lecturer and the people around you. I believe in learning from anyone, especially those younger than me. It's when your young, that you have new perspectives and new ideas. It's not that I cannot generate them, but I am getting older and generate them at a slower pace. No doubt my ideas can come out alittle more polished than some of my peers, but that's not enough for me.

I can never have enough knowledge, it is once said that once your cup is full, you should pour away the contents and fill it up again. I sort of learn things in that manner as well. When I relearn something, I throw away all old concepts I used to have about the matter. That usually allows me to pick up the concept in a different manner and much faster than if I had stuck to my old style of thought with regards to the matter. Of course, not everyone is capable of developing such a style of learning. One first must master the fear of learning new things. When one gets older, one must also abolish the fear of making mistakes.

If you tried to learn a completely new topic while trying not to make a single mistake, you'd probably learn extremely little and would only get by with memorizing the entire textbook. But if you sought to learn the boundaries that this new subject can stretch into, your ability with your new found knowledge can exceed far beyond what the teacher's original intent. This is what drew so much attention to me back when I was in the Polytechnic. I sought to test the knowledge I earned during lessons by interacting with the lecturers and making some mistakes along the way. The teachers admited that I was a brilliant student but my final grades just never reflected this form of learning.

Perhaps if the education system worked in a slightly different manner. Right now the assumption is that if you get the correct answer, it is either because you have made enough mistakes while learning the subject matter to avoid getting the wrong answer. But it is obviously not the case with many of the students out there now. By over emphasizing the need to get a flawless answer, people have already forgone the method of learning from their mistakes. They have adopted the memorize and reguritate the model answer as form of survival. And by forcing the majority of the populace to adopt this method to learning, it's no wonder why we are so hard pressed to find creative minds in our society.

If one wants a creative mind, you cannot teach him by telling him that he can only follow one set model answer for every question. You have to allow him to test and experiment with the question to find out which answers are definately wrong and which ones can be plausible. It may seems rather counter productive in certain subjects such as math and physics. But on the contrary, it's even more desperately needed because of the growing applications that math and physics are being applied on today. Infact, all brilliant mathematicians can come up with their own variations of equations that are deemed to have only 1 way of solving a question. Without a creative mind, you can forget about getting a PHD in math or physics or almost any other subject matter.

To question authority is the basis of creativity. To question what is supposedly set down in "stone" is how people get to discover new things. If everyone continued thinking that the world was flat, did you think that we'd be a global society we are today? Rules are meant to be broken and broken completely and utterly. There must be no trace of the rule left behind to ensure the continued prosperity of humanity.

If the rule that the world was flat was an IRON CLAD rule, we have truly shattered and destroyed that rule that there is no trace but contempt for such an ideal. This is how we must view our current set of rules. How are some rules untrue and used to oppress creativity? These rules were not made with prejudice I know, but they unintentionally impede our growth. Thus we have to remove these obstacles before our mindsets can change as a species and move forward as a whole.

To have continued prosperity, our education system has to move from one that oppresses free form thought to one that promotes creativity. So that this new education system may give rise to minds that perfects cold fusion, longevity, cure for cancer, cure for aids, space travel and countless more advancements that are so badly impeded with our one tracked societal mindsets. If only we can release our minds from being trodden upon, can we truly advance into the future together and hopefully even be able to conquer space within a couple of generations.

The first step is to change the grading system either gradually or in phases. The grading system should abolish exams and concentrate on the learning process. When teaching a subject through correcting mistakes and telling them to try something else, one might be completely surprised at the possibilities that a supposedly one answer question might have. And thus grade the children according to how far can they infer about the subject matter after the exercise to test the limits to the distance that the child can think on the subject. When these children reach the university level, the human race will never have seen such mental ability in our entire history of humankind. It will far outstrip any of our predecessors and perhaps push humanity truly forward in the twenty first century.

Personally, I have learnt my way through life using this method and I'm sure some of the rebellious people out there have also taught themselves via this method. It becomes plainly obvious when it comes to testing our knowledge, that we are not afraid of learning from our mistakes and becoming smarter in the process. However, when you see the people that's brought up under the current education process, you'd see that when you test their knowledge. They will defend their points of view to the death without trying to understand whether or not the opposing point of view has any merit whatsoever.

And when it comes to invention of ideas and technology, you can tell right away if the inventor is creative or a dullard. If a true inventor's ideas get stolen or cheated away from him, he just creates a new invention that's just as innovative or even more innovative than the one that was stolen. But if it's a dullard, that invention would probably be his ONLY invention that would have ANY merit to society. Thus he will die defending his invention because he's totally incapable of coming up with more innovations to credit to his name. This is the sad story that plagues our scientific community.

Creative people should NEVER be isolated merely at the Arts and Humanities, they should be spread through out the spectrum because they are a benefit to every field of study. Creative people's point of view may simply revolutionize our way of handling space travel or the like. Think of the countless trillions of dollars that will be saved if we had a cheaper form of travelling to space safer and faster than our current technology. And that 1 million dollars saved everytime we need a pen because we use a pencil instead in space instead of developing pen that works in zero gravity. All I can say is, without creativity, the world is doomed to making dumb and expensive decisions while thinking that they are getting smarter when they are actually sinking into new depths of retardedness. Alauz OUT!

Idiots of today, Geniuses of tomorrow