254- Books & education

Light Trigger Warning, and grab a cuppa for 1,136 word entry

In entry 251, I mentioned that several events delayed my postings in 52weekgratitude challenge, which was supposed to have 1 entry per week. I'll try to catch up on both weeks 24 & 25, but expand them because I find their topics are closely related.

Indeed, 24 prompt was "a book that taught me something" and 25 "education". 

These weeks were for June 11 & 18, respectively. With this one post, I reduce my late entries.  

Well, a lot of books taught me a lot of things; I could talk about one in specifics, like asked, or rather tie-it in with the topic of education and expand, because I am passionate about these subjects. 

In entry249, I said that "Part of my cult rules forbade me from reading unauthorized books (only religious stuff and the books that I had to read for school were allowed, though each was checked carefully)". Indeed, my strict upbringing, using depersonalization and conditioning techniques to break my personality down have the sole purpose of making me totally dependant and malleable to my father's religious "teachings" or "truth". 

Luckily, I developed curiosity and a thirst to understand the world around me, as well as my own life conditions, in the hope to find ways out of my difficult youth. Very early on, "my curiosity pushed me to go to read books in bookstores or libraries" (again from post 249) precisely because I wasn't allowed to read "materialists' godless approaches to life", according to my father. I quickly became a bookworm, spending hours and hours anywhere that had books. Despite anxieties that I was experiencing (not knowing anything about social phobia), I forced myself to go read in libraries, but most often, in bookstores which were closer and easier of access. 

I would go to either of them on my way to various errands I was sent on ; I tried my best to read only enough time so I could also run my errands and get back home fast enough, because my time out was measured and any delay would be punishable. 

I accepted all the beatings I received, because my curiosity and thirst for knowledge and counter-education were bigger than the pain I was subjected to. I read countless novels to escape my reality, but also a lot of non-fiction, with topics ranging from feminism, to technology, astrophysics to herbal medicine, and many more. 

I would devour these books so much that I could discuss them with customers in bookstores and help them choose wisely - thus being a bit of a critic in my teens, and the store owners would grant me this exceptional right to remain reading on their floors even for hours at a time, because I brought them customers. I could seldom buy these books myself, but eventually managed to do so when I cheated my way to cash : I stole back some of the money that my father had confiscated from gifts people had offered ; I befriended some of the vendors in the market, who, in time, offered me reduced prices, and I would pocket the difference of the real amounts I'd pay with those official billed ones, right under everyone's noses in the cult... 

My education was quite poor; I grew up in a sectarian world-view, or rather, that was my father's plan. 

There are many topics that I never learned, partially because of my difficult school path, which I'll detail elsewhere. In the end, I self-taught English and scientific subjects, and reduced the gap between my low education and a full one that I should've received. 

I am a strong believer that education and reading books widen our understanding of the past and present, thus giving us the tools to improve ourselves (through psychology and other self-help books), and the world around us with the knowledge that we can receive, but must sort out all the dogmas and illogical approaches some charlatans present as truth but which are misinformation at best, or abuse at worse.

Don’t accept anyone’s words as the absolute truth ; always practice critical thinking to weed out all those fake-truths that come from various sources. Cross-check every information, and learn.

Knowledge and words can be weapons and indeed have been used as such from many groups that form our societies. The battles of ideologies are tainted by religious dogma and backward thinking. We sadly see this in effect in a number of countries where theocracies override logical thinking; possibilities and dreams are squashed and postponed to a later date.

Illiteracy is the sad result of cultural oppressions, oftentimes chosen as a tool to keep the masses un-intelligent, because intelligence and curiosity are the first keys to seek out better solutions, and some powers-that-be don’t wish the people (us, you, me, or someone else) to have knowledge.

In the past, this went quite far: books were burnt, the inquisition and other authoritarian, violent forms to suppress curiosity – using religious dogmas as excuses, calling people heretics and all the witch-hunts…

In modern days, we still see some governments blocking access of their citizens to information and knowledge by limiting internet IP’s.

Access to education and books have been, and still is, an issue in our world today. We must learn to embrace unity, open-mindedness and create universal access to knowledge for the good of all humankind.

For this to happen, parents must regain the will to teach their children all the passions that come with book-reading for entertaining as well as offering tools towards insights, intelligence and knowledge. We must, as a society, regain and push authorities to stop trying robotizing our thoughts.

It starts with you, me and anyone around.

I love books. I used to work in libraries. Now I’m still a bookworm, and only regret that I never learned how to read faster, because I won’t be able to read all the books that must be read during my lifetime.

But, while I’m still here, I’ll continue reading, and talking about books. You can see some of my reviews for mental health books here on this very-blog, but other topics are covered in my reviews blog.

Books help stirring  our imagination and creativity, highly important aspects of our personality as human beings. In fact, I hope to post about this topic, in view of all the societal mind-numbing and stunted communication skills, which are very worrisome. 

I cannot be exhaustive in a blog post. I hope that you see enough reasons to embrace these core-values I discussed here. 

Despite my difficult life, I am thankful to have been lived in countries that allow access to books. I am grateful that I was born with a body and mind capable of reading, learning and growing, as I simply cannot imagine my life without the quest for knowledge.