Chart your own course
“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind” CS LEWIS
WE START OUR LIVES surrounded by people who know a great deal more than we ever could. To a four-year-old, a very average adult is a miracle of supreme intelligence. They know how to drive a car, say hello in several different languages, pay for a meal with a credit card and describe who Napoleon Bonaparte was – incomprehensible mysteries when one has only spent a few summers on the planet.
The whole of formal education feels like a process of catching up: we are required to take in information and techniques that our parents and teachers built up over decades. A central assumption embeds itself in our developing minds: we don’t know. But they do.
“Far from arrogance, we are labouring under an unduly modest assessment of our right to think”
As we reach adulthood, a benign version of our instinctive deference shows up in our willingness to trust
