In the Metaphysics , Aristotle says that it is wonder that led the first philosophers to philosophy, since a man who is puzzled thinks of himself as ignorant and philosophizes to escape from his ignorance. Wonder is a complex emotion involving elements of surprise, curiosity, contemplation, and joy. It is perhaps best defined as a heightened state of consciousness and emotion brought about by something singularly beautiful, rare, or unexpected—that is, by a marvel.Curiosity derives from the Latin cura , ‘care.'

To be curious about something is to desire knowledge of that thing. Knowledge extinguishes curiosity, but not wonder. Like Plato and Aristotle, the philosopher AN Whitehead noted that ‘philosophy begins in wonder’, but then added that, ‘at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains.’ Wonder in the sense approaching awe is a universal experience found also in children (picture a child at the circus) and perhaps even in higher-order primates and some other animals.

Socratic wonder, in contrast, is much more rarefied, and, as Socrates implies by calling it ‘the feeling of a philosopher’, not given to everyone. Today, most young people who go to university do so for the sake, not of marveling or even learning, but of gaining a piece of paper with which to advance their career prospects—entirely bypassing the wonder and wisdom that might have rescued them from needing a career in the first place.











I submit, if we did not have the insatiable ability to wonder; science, technology, humanities and otherwise all of human life, would look totally different. Our quality of life would not be what it is today. It begs the question, how else do we define this impetus that makes or causes us to create a life of possibility, happiness or joy?

I will be watching this thread for wisdom. So far, I'm not disappointed.

What I also like to see addressed, maybe in another thread, is how to lead one who does not want to be lead? If there is an answer to that, then, once we lead someone to curiosity, a great leap will have been made.

If there is an answer to that, then, once we lead someone to curiosity, a great leap will have been made.

Sadly, many people do not open themselves to wonder for fear that it may distract them or upset their equilibrium. After all, wonder is wounding, and thaumais only one letter removed from ‘trauma’. To wonder is also to wander, to stray from society and its norms and constructs, to be alone, to be free—which is, of course, deeply subversive, and why even organized religions need to tread a fine line with wonder. To rationalize the fear of it, wonder is dismissed as a childish and self-indulgent emotion that is to be grown out of rather than encouraged or nurtured.

(thaúma – a wonder, evoking "emotional" astonishment (gaping) at the marvel, i.e. performed to powerfully strike the viewer personally (uniquely, individually)

James,

The metaphysics associated with the feelings of wonderment are actually very normal. The infamous Kantian judgement or proposition that 'all events must have a cause' is at the source of much human advancement. There should be no fear there. But rather, some level of excitement in the unknown, and all that could be... .

Similarly, as self-aware Beings, it should be natural to seek answers to such questions. And it is certainly natural or normal for one to ask questions themselves...

I will share this with someone I love. Someone who I dearly want to see the wisdom in it. Someone who does not want to be lead, or at least lead by me. Thank you.

I'm honored you found some of it helpful (and I hope they do to...).
:up:

Is it possible to be fascinated by everything? Is it possible to sustain a lifestyle of total curiosity? — Benj96

So that unless one is blessed with great intelligence to master advanced math and such, one is stuck in being Amelie? Oy vey.

So how do people stay endlessly fascinated? How does one master the capacity to stay engaged? I believe this is a topic that demands more attention. — Benj96

First of all, this is an excellent question. It's something I struggle with with relative frequency.

If I had to guess, I think that in large part the capacity to sustain fascination is person dependent. There are times in which I just cannot bring myself to care, be invested in, or think about certain topics that on most other times, are just the most interesting topics of all: philosophy, science, international relations and literature.

Maybe there is something to be said about discipline. It probably helps you to stay connected with a topic even if it's not being interesting at the moment. It's probably also good to engage with something you normally wouldn't, it could lead to new things.

Then again, if something is not connecting with you at the moment, you might be actually be better served doing something else.

There is a world of difference in the capacity for retention and engagement with serious issues if you are interested or fascinated as opposed to moments when, for whatever reason, you aren't so interested.

I'm sure others have different experiences.

Is it possible to be fascinated by everything? Is it possible to sustain a lifestyle of total curiosity? — Benj96

I doubt it and I personally would not want to be fascinated by everything. Life is too short. and my guiding principle is quality not quantity. I think being open to new things and being broadly curious may be good, but few people have the time or the financial independence to take all things to the max. I, for instance, would not spend any time on pop music, sport, video games, stamp collecting, Dresden figures - to list just a few random subjects which repel me. I have known two or three people who are consumed by curiosity and they tended to neglect family and work obligations.

When I think of curiosity people a few images come to mind, namely;
Children - they seem to be boundless in what they can find interesting. I suppose this is because for them most things are novel experiences. They can be fascinated with a puddle, or some mud, or a ladybug climbing a piece of grass — Benj96

Children can also be relentlessly , impossibly bored. I have never been so bored as an adult as I was as a child. I think that’s no coincidence. Different moods and attitudes imply and are based on complementary ones.
Extreme elation is often followed by deep
depression, as seen with bipolar disorder.

I found your answer very insightful and enlightening.
I had never considered how wonder persists despite receiving answers to the questions that perhaps elicited it in the first place. If anything it is as tho confirmation of the basis for wonder by receiving answers or insights encourages it to persist. As it does in me writing this response having learned a lot from what you replied with.

Maybe in the great war against depression and other mental illness - a new field that studies how to offer curiosity and restore appeal or attraction to even mundane things to those who have befallen a state of apathy and disinterest would be of great advantage in treatment.

I have often found myself faced with a disenfranchised friend who is spiralling down to the depths of this nasty condition and I have tried to offer several “appetisers” to stimulate their thought and hook them on the mystery and seductive nature of questioning and curiosity that keeps me personally fed by my life and staves off my own negativity.

But it’s incredibly difficult. And each person I think likely requires a different trigger to put the purpose or “soul” back into their pursuit of an existence. If we could only create some formula of how to engage ones intrinsic passions - we would be on the right track.

A mental malady requires a mental tonic

Children can also be relentlessly , impossibly bored. I have never been so bored as an adult as I was as a child. I think that’s no coincidence. Different moods and attitudes imply and are based on complementary ones. — Joshs

Yes I can understand that. I also remember being in my room bored to tears as a child (well more as a teen) and it can be intolerable.
I also agree that extremes do tend to provoke a consequential reverse reaction - pivoting to the other extreme.

The question then seems to be “how does one stabilise themselves?” The so called “Goldilocks zone” of not too happy not too sad instead of a tumultuous rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Any thoughts?

For me, coming from a biological standpoint as I would deem it my strong suit in this case - would point to the reciprocal relationship of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system or “fight or flight” vs. “Rest and digest”.

Fight or flight is reactionary and prompt by nature. It stands to reason that it then leads to extremes of emotions: “omg I almost just died there (fear, terror and anxiety) when that lion attacked to the profound satisfaction of having preserved your life (elation euphoria / happy to be alive).

Maybe then, the core difference between stable minds and topsy- turvy ones (eg. Bipolar disorder) is that there is a strong belief in the latter that their life is persistently under threat. They’re stuck in survival mode for whatever reason- both real or manufactured by the beliefs held in the mind.

The interesting thing is there is a strong association between “ persecutory beliefs” and many mental disorders ; PTSD (relieving that trauma that could have killed you), paranoid schizophrenia (someone is trying to attack, hunt, kill me delusion) and bipolar disorder (rapid alternation from everything is wonderful and I am invincible to what’s the point I might as well die).

As for boredom. That may be a severe parasympathetic state - too much resting and digesting - no fear or motivation to change your current state and the mind goes crazy without stimulus - see “sensory deprivation experiments”)


There is a balance in there somewhere.

but few people have the time or the financial independence to take all things to the max. — Tom Storm

Do you think maybe the fast paced working life of living in a society/ collective may be propagated by the entertainment industry for this reason?

We don’t have the time to explore things in depth because of all these swirling obligations and responsibilities. So we let media do it for us.

We work often mundane or repetitive jobs and then having our minds and thoughts provoked by film, literature, music etc allows us an outlet to live vicariously through the art of others.

Their is some evidence for this in the case of many philosophers being inherently eccentric and introverted people that prefer alone time or refusing to follow social convention - think Diogenes the homeless philosopher, unemployed ie with time to spare, or the solitude, and isolated locations of some places as monasteries and retreats for mind/ body/ soul searching endeavours.

I suppose the only way to find out would be to observe a society in which social media/ entertainment industry doesn’t exist and see if there is an uptick in philosophy, spiritualism or profoundly curious and expressive art forms by the typical average person.

Media may be a placating us or distracting us. Who knows?

What I also like to see addressed, maybe in another thread, is how to lead one who does not want to be lead? — James Riley

If memory serves, a fellow named Jean Piaget observed that a range of mathematical/logical concepts were not available to children below a certain age. Makes sense: there are such concepts that even now I don't get. He was big on the education of children - I do not have at hand his definition of child - and observed as a corollary that knowledge could be imparted incrementally. The metaphor was as a growing at the edges, like a leaf or a flower.

So much for Piaget. My bias is that unless humans are near the end of a dead end, they - we - are going to have to figure out how to make difficult thought easy and how to teach it. And this not the burden of the child but altogether that of the teacher. That's imo the insight. If you want someone else to know, then the task is to teach. And properly understood that task is utterly rigorous in its demands.

And public education, in accepting failure, makes clear it's not in the teaching business. I suppose a good example of a teacher would be Ann Sullivan, who taught Helen Keller, her effort a kind of total battle in which the enemy both had and took all advantage, yet she won the war. There is in this a kind of selfless service much like love. And for which there is little or no room for direct ego reward. Sense?

Sense? — tim wood

Yes. Not what I wanted to hear, but :100: sense.

I am glad that you parsed "public education" from the "teacher." I think we have a lot of teachers, but they are somewhat hamstrung when they are also called upon to be parents of many, many kids who aren't their own. It's amazing what they do with what they've got.

On that note, some might say we should pay more and we'd get better. While I agree we should reward teaching, I don't want to pull a bunch of mercenaries into the public education system to teach kids how to be better producers and consumers.

Maybe we should teach kids how to be better parents/teachers so their kids, when they finally arrive at school, are better leaves and flowers.

I'm afraid I've digressed from my original question regarding leadership, and the one that you tried to help me with. But yes, what you said makes sense. And it makes clear what I already knew: I've never been much of a leader or a follower. No matter how much I care for a student, it takes more than caring to lead one who does not want to follow. So leading can be like those mathematical/logical concepts that some of us never get.

As for boredom. That may be a severe parasympathetic state - too much resting and digesting - no fear or motivation to change your current state and the mind goes crazy without stimulus - see “sensory deprivation experiments”) — Benj96

If life bores you, risk it. Me.

I know that can be taken to an extreme also, but, as yGasset opined, how insipid life must be for a creature, man for example, who finds it necessary to divert himself.

I found your answer very insightful and enlightening.
I had never considered how wonder persists despite receiving answers to the questions that perhaps elicited it in the first place. If anything it is as tho confirmation of the basis for wonder by receiving answers or insights encourages it to persist. As it does in me writing this response having learned a lot from what you replied with. — Benj96

Well thank you kindly for the compliment, I'm not worthy. BUT :joke: I will offer some response here. Firstly, wonder is a wonderful thing. I contemplated/studied wonderment for awhile in trying to figure out what kind of purpose or impact that it had on me and the so-called human condition. And I found it to be quite miraculous. The power that it gives us is extraordinary. As was mentioned, it should be embraced and nurtured where possible. Typically, there is more benefit than not (given the right conditions of freedom, etc..).

Second, wonderment drives me personally in a way that is exciting. For instance, I opened a thread recently and was able to discover/uncover a concept (Structuralism) from an atheist philosopher whose interpretation inspired my own thoughts about metaphysics. Speaking of which, wonderment is just that (or if you care to parse the nature of wonderment itself viz consciousness you are more than welcome to poke holes). Alternatively too, that was yet another Kierkegaardian irony in life. Knowledge can come from the most unexpected places, but if you don't walk the path, how is Revelation going to cross it (?). Life is about doing. Being and becoming, right?

That said, your following comment dovetails to this thought/recommendation. Since Maslow taught us that much of living this life includes both a discovery and uncovery of Being, we can find much joy, happiness and excitement when we, in this case, learn something new by exercising our minds, hence your concern:

But it’s incredibly difficult. And each person I think likely requires a different trigger to put the purpose or “soul” back into their pursuit of an existence. If we could only create some formula of how to engage ones intrinsic passions - we would be on the right track. — Benj96

Maslow (psychologist turned philosopher) talked a lot about your 'intrinsic passions', and I highly recommend any of his books to your friend. His first book is The Psychology of Being is an easy read and was groundbreaking at the time. That book explores the extremes of our human thought process (cognition and values), from the rather bleak side of the human condition, to the highest side of the human experience in concepts:

(Truth: honesty; reality; simplicity; richness; oughtness; beauty; pure, clean and unadulterated; completeness; creativity, essentiality Goodness: rightness; desirability; oughtness; justice; benevolence; honesty Beauty: rightness; form; aliveness; simplicity; richness; wholeness; perfection; completion; uniqueness; honesty Wholeness: unity; integration; tendency to one-ness; interconnectedness; simplicity; organization; structure; dichotomy-transcendence; order
Aliveness: process; non-deadness; spontaneity; self-regulation; full-functioning
Uniqueness: idiosyncrasy; individuality; non-comparability; novelty
Perfection: necessity; just-right-ness; just-so-ness; inevitability; suitability; justice; completeness; "oughtness". Completion: ending; finality; justice; fulfillment; finis and telos; destiny; fate
Justice: fairness; orderliness; lawfulness; Simplicity: honesty; essentiality; abstract, essential, skeletal structure Richness: differentiation, complexity; intricacy Effortlessness: ease; lack of strain, striving or difficulty; grace; perfect, beautiful functioning Playfulness: fun; joy; amusement; gaiety; humor; exuberance; effortlessness Self-sufficiency: autonomy; independence; not-needing-other-than-itself-in-order-to-be-itself; self-determining; environment-transcendence; separateness; living by its own laws.)

There's a lot to think about there for sure.... .

I also agree that extremes do tend to provoke a consequential reverse reaction - pivoting to the other extreme.

The question then seems to be “how does one stabilise themselves?” The so called “Goldilocks zone” of not too happy not too sad instead of a tumultuous rollercoaster of ups and downs.

Any thoughts? — Benj96

There is a tendency in psychological theorizing to reduce emotion and attitude to some sort of extraneous coloration or content that is added onto experience. Thus, curiosity or boredom are treated as inner substances, either evolutionarily selected for or socially conditioned or both.

I think it’s a mistake to understand feelings and attitudes as separable from our relations to situations. I don’t think the shift from curiosity to boredom is like equilibrating between two concentrations of a chemical. They are instead existential responses to our coping in situations.
Curiosity leads to boredom because no situation can continue to provide a renewal of interest without a certain exhaustion of challenge. This isn’t the fault of the depletion of an ‘inner’ substance but the way that situations change. Creativity has cycles to it , as we move through different phases of interest in aspects of our world. Without these textures and vissicitudes of momentum to our experience we wouldn’t be able to experience anything. The loss of interest in something is a necessary, meaningful part of the creativity cycle, just as important as curiosity. It is not an ‘internal’ weakness but a natural expression of changing experience of situations as we make our way through them.

How to find a ‘Goldilocks zone’? I think recognizing that experience is self-reflexive and any particular
comportment toward the world will eventually shift of its own accord due to the ever changing nature of experience itself is the best way to maintain a fluid approach to the world. Believing that whatever mood or attitude one is in now will be permanent can lead to a vicious cycle of stuckness. Children are prone to believing that whatever state they are in now will never change, and that leads to intense negative moods.

If life bores you, risk it. Me — James Riley

Pretty much yeah haha. I wonder how bored adrenaline junkies feel when they’re not jumping from heights etc

Maslow (psychologist turned philosopher) talked a lot about your 'intrinsic passions', and I highly recommend any of his books to your friend. His first book is The Psychology of Being is an easy read and was groundbreaking at the time. That book explores the extremes of our human thought process (cognition and values), from the rather bleak side of the human condition, to the highest side of the human experience in concepts: — 3017amen

Thanks for the book recommendation will look into it and get a copy.
It’s interesting the topics he deals with because I myself being an informal Philosopher working from a very non- academically exposed personal investigation have also happened on the importance of several of these qualities outlined above. Dichotomies especially because I took an interest in physics/ mechanics and it’s correlation with Taoist philosophy of active and passive traits.

Currently I’m working on the basis/ assumption that a philosopher, scientist and spiritualist all occupy and witness the same intrinsic and fundamental nature of reality and therefore there must be a clear link between the conclusions of each discipline despite their differing means to extrapolate knowledge from it.

I see scientific objectivism and metaphysical disciplines at odds with each other passionately refuting the possibility of eons anothers conclusions due to the desire to conserve their methods without contradiction. I wonder if there is a method that resolves this dissonance - one that can fuse disciplines into a harmony, but it seems ultimately to boil down to the “hard problem” of consciousness in the end.

I enjoy the state of physics at the moment which is split into two directly opposing conflicting notions of the quantum and the Newtonian and I think there’s some major discovery to be made in that contradiction but we will just have to hope they figure it out

The loss of interest in something is a necessary, meaningful part of the creativity cycle, just as important as curiosity. — Joshs

Well true. I guess when we consider that we have a limited span of attention then technically every “new curiosity” is the abolishment of a previous one to a state of indifference or boredom or lack of desire to continue pursuing it. We can’t be painting a picture and working out probabilities, and treating a disease while socialising at the same time.

If curiosity was not limited to attention span then the highest state of curiosity would be to experience everything in existence simultaneously. Which kind of leads down the path toward ideas like “omniscience”, “omnipotence” and “omnipresence”

Do you think maybe the fast paced working life of living in a society/ collective may be propagated by the entertainment industry for this reason? — Benj96

The economic system and how business is conducted is probably more responsible for that.

Media may be a placating us or distracting us. Who knows? — Benj96

Well, it is the legitimate function of an entertainment industry to do this. That's why people seek out entertainment. It's a consolation.

We don’t have the time to explore things in depth because of all these swirling obligations and responsibilities. So we let media do it for us. — Benj96

Does media do it for us? Maybe a little with documentaries and such but I would think that many people aren't interested in exploring ideas in depth. Certainly not philosophy. That's not a criticism of them exactly just a fact that not all people have the same personality types or are primed by education and culture to even think this is a thing. Add to this full time work, family obligations and being tired... who then even thinks reading Heidegger, say, is a good idea?

Being curious is just one step. It's commonly said that intelligent people are curious. But are all curious people intelligent? No. Having a mind that can acquire wisdom through curiosity is another thing entirely. You can read the classic books, travel the world, learn a bunch of skills and still be a terribly dull human being. It may also be better to acquire serious knowledge about one or two things than be, as they used to say, a jack off of all trades...

when we consider that we have a limited span of attention then technically every “new curiosity” is the abolishment of a previous one to a state of indifference or boredom or lack of desire to continue pursuing it. — Benj96

That’s the interesting thing about attention.It’s not just a neutral beam of light with a certain capacity to illuminate. Attention is an active interpreting. Attention only appears limited to the extent that what we are experiencing is fragmented into arbitrary disconnected meanings. But attention can seem almost unlimited when we are involved in progressively unfolding deeper and deeper layers of a phenomenon that we interpret as continuously unified and harmonious. Deep interested sustained engagement on a unified experience is more profound than curiosity, which , like a junkie , needs constant novelty, but isn’t able to make much out of what it captures in the moment.

This is what Heidegger had to say about curiosity( for those who are curious about Heidegger):

When curiosity has become free, it takes care to see not in order to understand what it sees, that is, to come to a being toward it, but only in order to see. It seeks novelty only to leap from it again to another nov­elty. The care of seeing is not concerned with comprehending and know­ingly being in the truth, but with possibilities of abandoning itself to the world. Thus curiosity is characterized by a specific not-staying with what is nearest. Consequently, it also does not seek the leisure of reflec­tive staying, but rather restlessness and excitement from continual nov­elty and changing encounters. In not-staying, curiosity makes sure of the constant possibility of distraction. Curiosity has nothing to do with the contemplation that wonders at being, thaumazein, it has no interest in wondering to the point of not understanding. Rather, it makes sure of
knowing, but just in order to have known. The two factors constitutive for curiosity, not-staying in the surrounding world taken care of and dis­traction by new. possibilities, are the basis of the third essential characteristics of this phenomenon, which we call never dwelling anywhere.
Curiosity is everywhere and nowhere. This mode of being-in-the-world reveals a new kind of being of everyday Da-sein, one in which it con­stantly uproots itself.”(Being and Time)

Maybe we should teach kids how to be better parents/teachers so their kids, when they finally arrive at school, are better leaves and flowers. — James Riley

I absolutely agree.

The education system in most countries presupposes the idea that “we must make children productive functional participants in the industrial machine. We must equip them with pragmatic task based knowledge in specific academic subjects and mould them to “convene” with the status quo.

How then do we nurture innovation? Lateralised thinking? How do we give children the knowledge to elicit change in a system that clearly can be much improved instead of “breaking them in” until they resign/ submit to what “is” rather than what “could be.”

If it were up to me, children would not be fed prescribed facts in a structured curriculum that they must learn off by heart without really understanding why or how those were formulated.

Imagine imparting to them the means by which to utilise logic and apply it to anything?
So many important teachings are omitted from the education system in order to narrow and restrict the scope to specific paths.

Of course some subjects are staples: reading and writing, mathematics and sciences.

But what about subjects or modules on;
1). “The problems of humanity and failures of society.” - we should be offering children not just the successes of what we have achieved but also what we repeatedly fail to do. Outline where exactly we stand at the moment with issues that impact everyone.
“Culture. What is it? How does it form? Comparisons between different world cultures and their strengths and weaknesses” - a worldly view of humanity in all its diversity (sociology)

2). Interpersonal skills - we assume every child has an equal ability to understand the social construct or that they’re somehow going to succeed in it by themselves through experience. If we could teach them how to maximise their social relationships both on a micro scale - family, friends and colleagues but also on a macro scale - politics it would be very stabilising for their growth and development.

3). Maybe most importantly - we should teach them the method of inquiry. Not the results. What is logic? Methods of logic. Argument/ debate/ discussion. How to formulate theory and hypothesis as well as how to test them. Different modes of learning and how to make useful associations and correlations between any relationships they wish. How to philosophise, self reflect and observe and how to research.

4). Lastly we should give them information on doing taxes, understanding the nature of money and trade, how to maximise on personal finances - saving, management of all of the affairs of an adult and interacting with the bureaucratic process of governance in an efficient and effective way. All the things we are left to figure out for ourselves in the adult working world.

Then it is only a matter of asking “what do you want to do? What Interests you? And provide them with the means and resources to pursue that at a younger age than university. We don’t personalise our training for each individual we throw them all together and teach them the exact same things which I think is very ineffective.
Most of these outlines above are usually only briefly addressed.

:100: Spot on.

I'm no teacher, but I do know the art of teaching has the necessary methodologies, starting with pre-school/kindergarten on up.

But like you said, good little producers and consumers are the goal.

I honestly think STEM, and better STEM, STEM that would put the Chinese and Indians in third place, would be that STEM which is approached from a position of genuine intellectual curiosity that itself springs from the Liberal Arts. I think the greatest minds of the Enlightenment were first steeped in reading, the languages (Greek, Latin), philosophy, history, etc. and then, when the "child mind" was nurtured, biology, math, etc. all were pursued with zeal.

We are resting on our laurels. We reward the wrong things.

I'm afraid I've digressed from my original question regarding leadership, — James Riley

Which I misunderstood, misreading "who does not want to be led" as who does not want to learn or be taught, or both.

Leadership and education, it seems to me, evoke different polarities in approach. Leadership implies lead-follow, order-obey. In a sense the denial of the self and adoption to non-self or extra-self goals. The military an obvious example, and most businesses and enterprises to a lesser degree. And to be sure the world itself requires it in the form of self-leadership, even as a matter of survival, the transition from ego to ego-service. Perhaps the occasional re-affirmation of the self in the "I'll just get out of the way for a while."

Education on the other hand being teaching-learning, even giving-taking, presenting-receiving, and so forth.

And these sharing functions of each other. But for all the sharing, essentially different, and the functions themselves altered in the translation. Leaders teach, then, but are not teachers; and teachers lead, but are not leaders. And so forth.

The US education system, responding slowly to the industrial revolution, moved towards school that were models of the work places that young adults were expected to move into, the theories for this coming out of Harvard Univ., and the first examples of such schools built, in one case at least, 1859 near Boston - although the underlying philosophy of the approach ancient.

Fast forward 100 years almost exactly, and the flaws of the system are manifest to many, and many experimental schools come into being, some famously, some notoriously, debated and with books written about them. But the public school system is solidly entrenched, its warts entrenched with it. And so now, as it has been true since Athens, if you want a good education, that system must be left.

The point of this merely to observe that little is new under the sun, and in the history of education, in the world generally and the US particularly, lie many lessons, most, by most, unlearned.

All of that makes sense.

When I referred to the idea of those who don't want to be lead, I was thinking of the parent child relationship. I enrolled my son in a martial arts class because I knew others make better teachers. I would show him something, trying to teach, and I could see the information go in one eye/ear and right out the other; usually with some obvious derision. Then he'd come home from class all full of excitement and motivation, wanting to share with me the new thing he just learned (which happened to be the exact same thing I had tried to show him earlier). LOL! When sharing this with other parents, old hands, they said "welcome to the club."

This has since gone from teaching to leading. I'm neither. But I do know some parents who have an entirely different (better?) relationship with their kids.

So we come back to "the people" of a nation/state. It reminds me of an old saying: "It's easy to herd buffalo; you just figure out where they want to go, and follow."

I was thinking of the parent child relationship. — James Riley

Having none of my own, I am naturally an expert on these matters, learning especially from the flaws and failures of others in practice. But the only thing I've got here is that leadership presupposes that the led are sufficiently selves in themselves to be led. And with children - even as old as seventy - that presupposition is and must be suspect. Now I'll throw some words around: that before there can be leading, or even teaching, there must be parenting, and I confess that the more I have thought about that, the less I got.

But you do trigger an epiphany of sorts, that perhaps the second coming has arrived and been long with us in the person of Clint Eastwood, or at least his script writer in having him say, "A man's got to know his limitations."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uki4lrLzRaU
Which for those of us who do, who are grown-ups, is saying a lot.