learning

I feel like my brain is turning to mush. How do I continue to learn after formal education has ended?

(even as I write that last question it seems stupid) Does one go to the library and pick a book and start reading? For some reason that seems too simple. Simple perhaps because I have become dependent upon the internet, google has become my best friend. Who needs to learn about a subject to get a specific piece of information when you can skip all the reading/learning and google some key words.
There is also the issue of credibility. Maybe it is our generation but I do not take anything at face value. Even if I don't realize I'm doing it at the time, I question every thing that I hear. That is the root of my problems with authority. (but that is a topic for another blog)... With all of the ways to gather information and all of the ignorant people in the world how can you trust what you read. On the news you hear stories of school textbooks being wrong or omitting important facts. I guess that is why we have brains..to filter.

Excuses. That is what I keep thinking as I am typing. These are all excuses because I'm too lazy? Because I am secretly fine with what I know at the moment? Or maybe because I already feel like I don't do anything with the knowledge I have so why would I want to get more. The saying knowledge equals responsibility has always weighed heavily on me. My thought is often, Lord can you just make me ignorant of this?

Once in college I really wanted to understand the happenings in the middle east. I was very upset, and remember exactly what was going on, the night I found out Bush declared war. I was scared. I've always liked news magazines and got a subscription to Newsweek. I tried every week to read completely the articles. I was lost, there was too much history I didn't know, there was no context from which to start. I think I needed 'the middle east conflict for dummies'. Just the differences in names threw me, my brain couldn't separate them they all ran together. That I don't think is a matter of intelligence or interest, just a thing my brain can't get because I didn't grow up getting familiar with their names. I kind of started thinking, do they even know what the problem is? Do they ever step back and think man this is immature? So I gave up trying to understand it was too much to figure out. I think I needed a class from someone who really got it.

I just remembered a class in college that I could not understand. The professor was a very intelligent man, he 'got' what he was teaching...he thought it was great. However when he talked I could not siphon out what I needed to learn (oh, the tangents he would go on.) I ended up dropping the class and taking it another semester with another professor, and I think I did fine.

There was another class like that as well, human biology. I studied ten hours for the first test I was determined to get a good grade in that class. You could ask me anything from the book and I knew the answer. My grade on the first test...a F. I was crushed...what the world!..a F!. The test was like foreign material to me. He was asking to apply concepts he wasn't even sure I understood. I was there to learn, and he was too smart to teach me. I was not the only having that trouble in the class (thank goodness). Unfortunately that class is the worst grade on my transcript. I was so discouraged I almost didn't show up for the final exam. My friend called my room three minutes before class encouraging me to come. In pajamas I rushed across campus and took the test, I was the first one done. Taking that test saved me from failing the class. Thank you Amy!

Congratulations if you have made it through all my late night, bored at work thoughts. I haven't made any decisions other than, I am going to go to the library on my next day off...stay tuned for what I find to learn.