When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,

   and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with

   much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

     I haven't decided yet if I'm posting this to depict a beautiful poem by Walt Whitman, or to simply express how much I am done with school at this particular moment. While it is most likely the latter that is inspiring this post, I would like to point out that we focus too much on authority. 

     We listen to the first person to tell us how to live life, then we listen to the next person who seems to know more than the first. We do whatever it takes so that when we speak to someone someday they will listen to us when we tell them how to live life. However did we ever think twice that maybe there is no right way to live? That maybe doing what we innately believe is the right thing to do is better than any advice any "learn'd" person can give us. 

     What Walt Whitman was saying in his poem was that no chart, or diagram, or proof, or figure, or some PhD professor can tell you exactly what the real world is like. The best way to figure that out is actually being in the real world. I'm not saying school's a joke. In fact stay in school, kids! What I am trying to say is in the midst of trying to cram numbers and figures in your brain, go out and live your life and see for yourself how the world is. Instead of only seeing it through clouded lenses. 

Life is the best professor.