Plato believed learning to be a process of reminiscing, whereby you remember knowledge that you’ve always possessed through reflection and study. Thinking about learning using this sort of language directs the attention inward.
Much of what people say about education and learning today directs the attention outward— it’s about jobs, society, growth, progress, invention and disruption.
The goal for many great (albeit misguided) 21st-century minds is to be constantly shattering boundaries and changing things. Rhetoric like, “be the change you wish to see in the world,” is valued above all else.
Lao Tzu said, “The world is won by those who let it go.” Those who are always trying to change things are stuck in the world of externals. They won’t believe they have a purpose in the world until they can observe some sort of tangible effect they’ve had on it.
And yet this is such backwards thinking from the perspective of nature. Every creature has a place, not a purpose. Existence is the given! We’re not part of a world that gives every human life a meaning, but we work with what we’re given.
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