brains and their vessels

I was speaking with an acquaintance lately, and it struck me as very strange, the way he thought. See, for us, well, me at least, I do view myself as one entity. Not much thought into that. Period. However, it came to light that there are some people out there, of high academic standings, who view their bodies as mere vessels to transport their brains around. This was rather perplexing as in my line of work, there was always a need to ensure that the inter-personal aspect of a relationship was outstanding. When the situation is such that there was superiority of one party, simply because he / she has spent so much time studying "totally irrelevant to society" , "totally obscure" subjects, there comes a point of time when there is a hierarchy formed just because of knowledge.

That said, the necessity of building a knowledge based economy is important, but there has to be alternate forms of attaining this knowledge. With all the emphasis of this being the information age, and the fact that information is now available 24/7, packaged nicely with a ribbon on top, emphasis has to be moved from the ability to recite, to independent thinking.

Independent thinking is something that is a really rare commodity where I am, and from a blog that I was reading, it suddenly becomes evident that there are many who are actually un-spontaneous, anti-intellects, masquerading as academics all around me. Just because you can remember stuff better doesnt make you in any way superior. After all this time in school, I am disappointed to say that that is all institutionalized learning is. A constant unrelenting monster to ensure that you conform, to ensure that you will emerge as a desk-bound worker, to join the masses already in the work-force. This perhaps is another part, much like the matrix movie, of how society has been mapped to ensure the conformance of every individual. This tether that all of us have, perhaps sans jungle-dwellers and tree huggers, is multi-layered. Religion, the working society, education, et cetera.

But then again, perhaps it's all because we have evolved from monkeys, and we are naturally social creatures. creatures who will conform to be accepted. Who wants to be different? More importantly, how and why be different?

Thought

The key to every man is his thought.
Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys,
which is the idea after which all his facts are classified.
He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

Ralph Waldo Emerson