One of my all time favorite books is “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. Possibly the most famous quote in that book goes something like this: “in the expert’s mind there is one possibility. In the beginner’s, there are many.”
I recently decided to continue my education on a self directed basis after graduating college a number of years ago. At the moment I’m studying maths, Spanish, and various areas of science including biology and neuroscience. I have little interest in becoming an expert in any of these areas, except to gain fluency in Spanish. My main interest is to be able to use these pursuits to engage with people more fully, to be more helpful. To me, this is something that we seem to have lost as a society. Curiosity is a strength, being open to new experiences and new people instead of locked down in one mindset, whether that’s racism, or interpreting everything through a specific knowledge base is a major advantage.
