Several times in lectures this semester, we've had lecturers who have come in and sat down with a well-worn book or two, and just talked to us about their topics: Aquinas, Teilhard de Chardin, Paley and Natural Theology. They've done years of work on these thinkers. They know enough to know what they don't know and they know what we should know or what we should get out of a class. They stand on top of mountains of read and annotated paper and books and bibliographies, used up highlighters ringing the mound.
I miss that. I'm not saying that I was an absolute expert, but I was very good at teaching third graders about space. It was nice to show up to a presentation and know how it was going to go. Curveballs were an absolute delight, rather than a cause for panic. You get excited by new ideas.
It's weird to be on the other side of that interaction. I dislike speaking out of ignorance.
I like this idea for a goal, though, for a five year plan. In the future, I should like to be able to show up and speak from my knowledge, open up a frontier and show its boundaries to people. It takes time to build a mountain.
But it's so worth it.
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