Stian Håklev · Hamar
I tell people I'm currently giving myself the high school education I never got.
…in five years, you'll be five years older no matter what! Wouldn't it be cool to be five years older, and also read ancient Greek? Or be able to play the saxophone? Or know woodworking?
What's something new you want to try this week?
WatchCivilisation. Kenneth Clark, BBC 196913 programmesOzymandiasI met a traveller from an antique land,Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,ReadShelley, with Close Reading Poetry22 min
ListenBrahms, Symphony No. 1
LookOne picture, 15 minutes. Asta Nørregaard, In the Studio
Go for a walkIn Our Time, BBC Radio 4
Your first operaIt all started with Kirsten FlagstadRead a poem before bed.Keep a short story collection in the bathroom.Play five minutes of The Barber of Seville next time you're surfing YouTube.Dare to go to Nasjonalmuseet one day and look at just one picture, for 15 minutes.
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I turned my year pass at the National Museum into an art appreciation class for myself
I walked into Nasjonalmuseet with an ordinary ticket and out with a year pass (nice system, well promoted). It was my first time there. I had never cared much about paintings, but in August a friend had dragged me along to Kumu in Tallinn, a whole day, and I liked it much more than I'd expected. And at Nasjonalmuseet there was Asta Nørregaard, whom I had never heard of, and I stood in front of her paintings for a long time.
So I had a year. That's a nice frame for learning something properly, but I couldn't find a path: the museum has lots of exciting things for adults, but it's all very fragmentary, with no order or progression. So I ended up having to do it myself. I told Claude what I like and what I wonder about, and asked for a program with a couple of pictures per visit. And it did it!
Where is the knowledge strategy for adults?
More generally I wish there were more opportunities for adults to learn to appreciate/understand culture more systematically. There are lots of events and talks etc, but very few courses, or chances to go deep.
Read togetherThe Catherine Project. Free reading groups, onlineJust finished The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, which I spent a long time on. Quite dense, incredibly interesting, overwhelming, and somewhat exasperating...
Jonathan Rose, The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes ↗Any good guides for autodidacts who want to get a good grasp of history? I see great discussions online about people learning programming, but also for example ancient Greek.
The high school education I never got →Go deeper
My grandfather was reading a 1,000-page book about English history when he was 80. He was a very big inspiration to me, that you can learn throughout your life. And the question is not, "Do I like it or not?" It is, "Can I discover? Can I appreciate what it is about this work that has touched people?"
Kulturbase
Networked Thought
Alif