Accidental Learning

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In 1960, our family purchased the The World Book Encyclopedia In Nineteen Volumes with Reading and Study Guide. It looked very important and filled a full book shelf on its own. It was bound in deep red, leatherette binding and it held, as far as we knew, everything, literally everything we would ever need to know. It was like Google on paper.

The difference being that if you were looking up, I don’t know, Saskatchewan, a province in Western Canada, you would open the S volume and start looking, and maybe along the way, you’d accidentally stumble across Jonas Salk and his polio vaccine, or the natural wonders of stalactites and stalagmites. And before you realized it, you knew stuff. All kinds of stuff. Stuff that didn’t necessarily fit into a presumptuous box of “things we think this person would be interested in.” No algorithms were involved. No force feeding of similar and pre-tested content. This was accidental learning at its best. 

I learned a lot of random stuff that way, which no doubt fed my art and career and life in general. And I still think accidental learning is often the best way, because the subjects of interest happen upon you. And if they’re of no interest, you just turn the page. But if they interrupt your flow and make you go, “Hmm. That’s curious.” well, there you go on a journey to something new.

And maybe, just maybe that something new will inspire you or encourage you or dare you to spread your wings and fly. And wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing? 

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. 

The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” 

– Dr. Seuss