"Knowledge is not intellectual." - Marco M.

Knowledge is not intellectual

We certainly live in the age of the big eye and the big head. We are all hyper-informed and mistake this for "education". Every year, thousands of graduates are churned out who think they know, while they have simply been stuffed with information and ideology. For their own sake and that of mankind, they would have done better to spend their time and energy differently.

"Education" and "knowledge" are something else. They are what is expressed by action or charisma (a word that identifies a state of being that is actually an action without being one). For this reason, the great Zen masters did not teach anything theoretical/intellectual, but believed that the only possible teaching was the example  of one's own "being" and, at most, to direct the most difficult they did their utmost in a few healthy blows on the back.

I honestly believe that intellectual understanding can be a first step on the long path of knowledge. For some, including myself, the idea marks a path that one's whole self must then follow or try to do. That's why I insist on writing and lecturing visceral philosophy.

However, there is no intellectual understanding of beauty without expressing beauty and attention with one's gestures and with one's being. Do we then all have to become "artists"? No, just pick up cigarette butts from the pavement, don't move like elephants  in a room, don't constantly ask for the attention of others, don't talk loudly on your cell phone and disturb others. Culture is about doing the right thing at the right time. It is learned through self-preservation. Culture is many small gestures that are mostly spontaneous to an educated person, while an instruction booklet is needed for the uneducated.

Knowledge and culture are a state of being, something that has nothing to do with information or what can be learned from a book or a discourse.  

Obviously, being humble is at the core of this process. The awareness of one's own imperfection and the attitude of first questioning oneself and one's work.

The path to perfection never ends, but it is the only one worth pursuing.

m.m.