Head Knowledge

I get very distressed when I hear Christians look at hermeneutics and theology and say, "It's all head knowledge. It isn't necessary." They are terribly wrong, by their own lights.

II Timothy 2:15 says, "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." It is a clear command to be diligent about handling the scriptures.

The wrongness of the phrase "it isn't necessary" is that it is a half-truth. The Bible and its contents and understanding of it are all unnecessary for salvation, according to Christian doctrine. But study of the Bible is necessary if you intend to use it as a workman uses his tools.

The problem arises when Christians bandy their own scriptures around without first trying to understand what they mean. II Timothy 2:16 says, "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." In other words, if you haven't studied the 'word of truth' and are sloppy at parsing or analysing (or 'rightly dividing') it, then you should avoid making irreligious and pointless statements.

That's not to say that those of us who have studied it should be arrogant. The text is complex. But the point is that anyone who makes a comment about a text should at least have a) read the entire text, b) learnt how such texts are to be examined, and c) learnt how to interpret the examined text.

Until one is reasonably experienced, one should avoid making statements about the text. And one should always be humble about accepting new input that is congruent with the entire text; you learn from fellow-labourers how the work is done. What one shouldn't do is blindly mimic or quote the words of someone else who is interpreting the text but not showing the principles by which he does it, or is using spurious principles.

All this applies also to the study of literature. Actually, this is why people who study any kind of religious text would benefit from being students of literature.

The Last Minute

Over the last few days, more so than in the last few years, I've had many students lament to me about the arduous nature of an academic life and the pain of getting things done in the last minute. It's a curious thing, that.

Why?

Because life, by its nature, whether from a chemical, social, physical, emotional or economic (or indeed, any other) perspective is arduous. If it weren't, it wouldn't be life; it would just be existence.

And everything, by definition, is accomplished at the last minute.

That's not to say you can't spread the work out or do some things that will make it feel better. I've realised that when a student pulls an all-nighter with the aid of 1,3,5-trimethylxanthine, that student sometimes really means the work has all been done in that night alone: reading, thought, writing, everything. That's madness.

For me, a last-minute job, even a theobromine- or caffeine-assisted one, normally starts earlier. It's the writing that is completed by that time; the reading and thinking started much earlier. I have the memory of one horrible occasion in which a project gestated for five years of part-time study and the bulk of it was written up (all 60,000 words of it) in four nights. That was my Master's thesis. Heh.

Subjects (Current)

After today's events, I need to say something more about my education and the burdens (and other hidden traps) it represents. I suppose three kinds of events occurred, and these inspired (if that's the right word) what I'm going to say. God-daughter and the Lioness have both completed their orals. Whiteness is having panic attacks about BGR. And Karis visited today.

I think I had a rather undistinguished formal education. if anything, the only distinguishing mark is that it has gone on so long. My last exams were in 2004 – I took two modules and got As for both 'Advanced Research Methodology' and 'Principalship and Teaching Performance' – but I'm still doing this really longwinded piece of writing, and I'm very bad at this. I work in spurts of nothing nothing nothing nothing then 20,000 words a week. It scares me, it exasperates my supervisors, it terrifies some other people.

The key points really are that 1) as Whiteness said, I am formidable because I seem to know a bit about everything; 2) as Karis says, I am formidable because I can create reliable and functional frameworks out of nothing; and 3) as others have remarked, I'm formidable because I have some gifts with language both oral and written. This is the outcome of the educational blessings God has showered upon me, and from which I think I've taken much profit, as that post shows.

I hate being thought of as formidable though. It isn't false modesty. I have to be honest enough to say that I am indeed formidable to some. But I must also urge my students, year after year, to strive for the same levels of formidability. I know that most of them can outlast, outpace, outscore and outperform me. It is pretty obvious. I just wish they would do it more often.

So what am I studying these days?

A bit of everything as usual. Completed more alchemical courses, studies in human nature and inhuman unnature, the economics of modernisation, the history of the Cold War, the literature of southern Europe, and the form guide for the 2007-08 English Premier League soccer season. It isn't really a course of study. I just like learning things.

And here's a secret.

I can't stand it when I don't understand things. So I go home and read up on them. When students ask me questions I can't answer even from first principles, I go buy a book or surf the net or invade the library. Because I have had thousands of students, I have learnt a lot because of them. Don't you people stop. Each one of you makes a difference to the way I think and do things; a few have made me radically different in attitude or direction. This is one of the reasons I respect every single one of my students. Without them, I'd be an increasingly illiterate old fart.

Subjects

I'm so sorry to those of you who have been reading this blog for sharp and witty writing (or whatever else you've been reading it for) and then been ambushed by a long series of autobiographical posts in which I get all sentimental and talk nonsense (as opposed to not getting sentimental and talking nonsense).

(That was a horrible sentence. I will go to some sententious, parenthetical and interminable hell, as my grammar used to say.)

My last post was about objects. This one is about subjects. I realised that after pontificating at length about education and suchlike matters, I haven't actually said much about my own ideal, perfect, beautiful education. Well, that's because I had a pretty normal education, and I might as well get it over with and disappoint you by talking about what i did for pre-university, undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

I started my pre-university education with a handful of mostly humanities 'O'-level distinctions. Somehow, things went awry and I ended up doing Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics and Mathematics as 'A'-level subjects for the first few months. Then I was summoned with a girl named Ee Lin (haha, wherever you are, if you're reading this, it was fun while it lasted) who was the only other person doing this combination and we were told to change it so that the time-table would work properly. And so I swapped the dismal science for the fundamental science. That meant I graduated in Physics instead of Economics.

Disaster followed disaster. Never a very good science student, I wound up doing Computer Science, Chemistry and Mathematics in the local university. This shrank to Pure and Applied Chemistry in my final year, followed by a research posting in organometallic chemistry. Oh yes, along the way I got an A for Human Resource Management. Haha.

A year later, I did my postgraduate diploma in secondary education. I got two Bs and an A for General Education and three As for Teaching (of Chemistry and Computer Science, and the Use of English). I got a B for the practicum (and an apology from my supervisor, believe it or not!) and ended up with a PGDE (Distinction). Another haha. Incredulous looks all around.

Then a few years of teaching in a convent followed. Odd posting that. Full post sometime else when I can bring myself to write more about those three years. Then it was time for a Master's degree (also in Education, what a fraud I am!) just for the fun of it. Further disaster, with incredulous laughter from my principal: I had Cs for 'Perspectives on Educational Developments' and 'Research and Issues in Science Education' – I don't think the examiners liked my views at all. The upside was that I had As for 'Qualitative Research', 'Research Methodology', 'Human Resource Management and Leadership', and 'Research and Issues in Language Education'. Especially for the last, I say, "Ha ha ha!"

Since that peculiar incident, I've not done very much. A few papers at conferences, a diploma in educational management, and the coursework for a PhD. Thesis incomplete. Story of my life.

The funny thing is that I've been talking about subjects, but it seems less subjective than a sort of nominally objective view of what my education is perceived as being. Well, I shan't subject you to more of this. I might say more in future, though.

Time To Study

It's always so amusing to see people running around proclaiming their indifference (both feigned and real) to studying, their fatalism (both feigned and real) with regard to studying, their iniquities and transgressions of omission and commission in the area of studies. I have been there before, repeatedly and sometimes with unneeded and unsought excess.

And yet, I've never felt I had insufficient time to study. Sports and games (three), societies (four), and a purposeful avoidance of all things more regimented than that, kept me sane and balanced. My grades were never great, but I always achieved my objectives – sometimes to the chagrin of teachers who felt I should have aimed higher.

But here is a simple recipe based on the latest in neurobiology and cognitive science.

1. Wake up. Your body's blood pressure rises dramatically and you will sometimes have the sensation of falling. This is almost like shock, as your engine shudders to life. It is not good to sleep too much. My old friend, a sleep specialist with fourteen degrees and qualifications in medicine, recommends not fewer than five hours and not more than eight hours.

2. Begin the day by flexing the limbs and their servitor muscles. Nothing too traumatic, but light weights in supine position followed by a gradual shift to a more upright posture will do wonders to bring the surges of the body's tides into proper equilibrium. 15-20 minutes, perhaps.

3. Try for a run. 2-3 km would be a bit much, given that you are a student first and an athlete a distant second (save for some of those who are either more deluded or far more talented than the rest of us). Skipping, simple calisthenics, these are fine.

4. Cool down. Your body has to be persuaded that you are indeed about to settle into a resting state of some sort. Or at least, one without so much adrenaline, activity, and angst.

5. Watch your diet. Have a good coffee. Coffee maintains metabolic tone, rekindles the brain, and speeds everything up. It is also virtually non-toxic. Have some carbohydrates. Your brain runs on glucose and indeed consumes more than most muscles. Make sure you get some glutamate. You cannot initiate thoughts without it.

6. Prepare your mind. Read the newspapers. You need to re-train your brain to handle text, not images. Text is a higher-order symbolic medium. Just what you need for studying.

7. Swear off all moving visuals - TV, RTS games; turn-based without excessive animation is fine. But I would recommend turning off the visuals entirely. Your brain is like Caesar's Gaul – it is split into three parts, one which handles moving things (like mosquitoes and other people, threats and menaces), one which handles symbols, and one which tries to forge memories (which is why there is no such thing as a true memory). You need to use two and switch off one. Guess which one.

8. Make sure that for your entire period of studying, all your stationery is present and neatly arranged. Ditto all study materials and textbooks. The body will cunningly plot to make you take a break while you search for missing stuff – especially missing stuff you don't really need but will allow you to absent yourself from your desk.

9. Follow this sequence all the time: wake up, exercise, rest, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, eat, rest, read relaxing stuff, study, take a break, study, eat a bit, study, sleep the sleep of the just. This doesn't work so hard if you have to go to school. It works great during holidays, weekends, and self-declared compensatory off-days. Studying like this gives you about 8 hours of rest and 10 hours of study, with recreation added. Great, isn't it?

10. If you have to go to school, make sure teachers don't distract you from your plan of study. They are there to serve you in your quest; make sure they work hard. In your studies, you will have taken careful and detailed notes about what you don't know. Make the teachers answer your questions and make the material clearer to you. If they can't do this, either you are not smart enough or they aren't good enough. It is sometimes hard to tell which it is.

11. Condense your study materials. If you have 250 pages of notes, there should not be more than five by the time you are done. The rest is either derivable or recallable using logic, mnemonics, or creative artistry. This is because you only have time to do last-minute reminders and refreshers for about five pages of solid material.

12. Ace the exams you want and pass the rest. It is very easy and you will not overstrain your brain. Remember that while your heart may go on and on (like Celine Dion), it is your brain which is the core of your being and the organ whose death means your own death. Protect it well; don't let it work too hard, or have too easy a time.

And that's all there is to it. Really. If you need a reading list (as if you haven't enough to read already!) do let me know.

Examination Priorities

When I was much younger, I was admonished often about the importance of setting priorities and considering the likely consequences of my actions. This was because it was assumed (often quite rightly) that I was prone to not thinking about either of these activities. When I became older, it became inconceivable that I should not be thinking about these activities, so I was scolded often for not doing them right. This was because my priorities and my approach to consequences tended to differ a lot from other people's.

So here are a few episodes which might serve as discussion points for people thinking about examination priorities and suchlike, especially in a school or university situation.

1. What is it that you need most?

When I was in university, I was required to take three majors. Let's call them Alchemy, Numeromancy, and Synthetic Cognition. I was pretty sure I wanted to be an alchemist, so I made sure I did reasonably well in that. In the years I studied Alchemy, I never let it get lower than 'Very Good'. However, in the second year of my tertiary existence, I was told that we had to spend 80 hours doing an exercise in 'Designing Runes of Synthetic Cognition for the Empowerment of Useful Homunculi' (or something like that). The documentation for the SC project ran to 120 pages, for some people. I was also told, "Fail the project and you will have to do a re-examination in SC."

So I did. I refused to hand up a project, was forced to take a re-examination, passed that, and continued on to the next year. This saved me 80 hours (at least).

2. What are the likely consequences of a sacrifice?

In chess, the sacrifice of a piece or an exchange normally has compensation in one of the following aspects: time, space, or practical chances. If you get your material back, that's a pseudo-sacrifice. This is also true in your studies. Let's return to the previous episode.

When the time came for me to sign up for my courses for the next year, I faced the redoubtable Professor Lee. He looked at me and said, "Of course you will not do Higher Synthetic Alchemical Instrumentalism. Your grades are so horrible, except for those in Alchemy."

I told him, "You might have better students applying for HSAI, but you will not have such a single-minded one. It is true that I did rather less than well for both Numeromancy and SC, but it is also true that I only studied the areas of Numeromancy and SC which pertain to Alchemy. Go ahead, test me."

He replied, "Maybe you have a point. Let me tell you what is happening. I have 30 places for HSAI. There is a waiting list. I will put you at the bottom, you are number 36. If enough people drop out in the next five days, you will get your place. Otherwise you will have to regret your selective stupidity."

It was interesting. I went home and slept a lot. Then I was summoned. "Congratulations, young man, you are number 25 now. That is good because we decided to shift the cut-off to 25 places."

Sometimes, single-mindedness is a good thing. Sometimes, fortune favours the brave. And sometimes, you can hear the swelling theme of divine purpose in the background.

3. What are the positive interactions between your courses of action?

My third year of study commenced. We had to do two majors. Mine were Higher Alchemy and HSAI, so I really had only one BIG subject. For two years, I had sacrificed practice of Numeromancy and SC (except where they dovetailed nicely with Alchemy), so that I could spend time in the library working out my alchemical practical experiments and documenting them. The hard work paid off when I topped the class for the Grand Alchemical Practice examination.

"I got 99.5," I told the Professor. "See, my sacrifices have some compensation."

Sourly, he looked me in the eye and said, "The test was upon 110. But yes, you topped the class. It doesn't mean you're a good student though. Although you could have been an excellent one. You are too distracted by all the other things you do."

There was some justification for his sourness. I had just won the Rhetorician's Prize in the annual debate between the practitioners of the Human Arts and the practitioners of the Dark Arts. I also spent many hours staring into the green illumination of the crystal screens at the SC laboratoria. Many, many hours. They nicknamed me Wanderer, so often was I found traversing the trees of knowledge for the fruit of wisdom in the net of the universe.

Result? When I finally graduated from the Ordeals, my Master wrote, "...interacts well with his colleagues, and has a dry sense of humour... advanced courses in group theory, [analysis of the spectral world, daedalian alchemy]... ...command of the [ ] Language, both spoken and written, is excellent... ...gifted in literary matters... ...has my full support in any future undertaking that requires dedication, initiative and creativity."

These were generous words from one I respected much, and thus even more valuable to me. But I would not have had this peculiar synergy if I had not made sacrifices earlier on. And that leads me to one final question.

4. What is the best you can do with your talents?

The answer is seldom, "Be the best-ranked candidate in every course you take." If this were true, then the overwhelming majority of people would be failures. Such an answer is suited to one-dimensional people living in a one-dimensional mechanistic universe with no Spirit, no Life, no Eternal Landscape.

Rather, as the Good Book says, "The race is not to the swift, not the battle to the strong... but time and chance happen to them all." We must then live wisely, being conscious that the time does not permit us to be the best in everything, but to allow us pass the tests presented to us. Yes, the terminology is not, "Be the best!" but "Pass the test!" Show yourself a workman approved, an athlete who has finished the race, a soldier who has fought the good fight. That you were not the first in everything is no grounds for thinking of yourself as a failure. That you are the least of all might make you the greatest.

Remember, the test is survival. For those who have survived and passed the tests, there are crowns for each test passed. Often, if we are to read the Book literally, the return on investment is minimally 100% in the final analysis, and a 10% dividend to investors for each period in which you have received income. It is not so bad; you will do well if you are not greedy for fame, fortune, and the ability to impress the weak-minded.

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I am not boasting. What I have written, I have written to show you how one man's way has produced a good harvest. But it is certainly not for everyone, and it is certainly not the best of all possible routes. Yet I am confident that my return on investment is sufficient, and as long as I can keep this true, I will be satisfied; and of course, if I cannot, I must work a lot harder - and more wisely.