Compared with animals we have no instincts at all – only a capacity to learn.
There is nothing which distinguishes one man from another that is more important than the learning he has done.
Our learning is of the greatest consequence, because everything that is important to us as human beings living in a human society came by learning.
What you can teach a clever gorilla in a lifetime a human learns in the first three weeks of his life.
What is learning? Most people are concerned only with scholastic, academic learning, which is the kind of learning of relatively little importance. Scholastic learning is a matter of choice, a choice that you can take or not take.
Once you look at it very closely you find that the learning that enables you to do the thing you know in another way, and one more way, and then three more ways, is the learning that is important. And when you see learning in that light, you find that a whole world of important things is open to us.
The truly important learning is to be able to do the thing you already know in another way. The more ways you have to do the things you know, the freer is your choice. And the freer your choice the more you’re a human being. Otherwise, you are like a computer who is switched on and can do very clever things, but only one way.
Quotations from Moshe Feldenkrais, „The Master Moves“.
Banner foto: Wolfgang Hasselmann @ Unsplash
