Thought about University?

My own time at university I was in a science/engineering area of study, which was unexciting. I gained much more benefit from my fellow-students during non-study time, when I was exposed to a wide range of topics including Albert Camus as well as Lyall Watson and much more. Camus led me down a dark path, perhaps something one has to go through in order to emerge into the light at the end. Lyall Watson remains one of my favourite authors, his book Gifts of Unknown Things being quite special for me. Overall, my time at university is something I treasure, not for the academic side, but because it had a transformative effect on me, and included some of the happiest times too. But times have changed, there may be restrictions on free speech these days which were undreamed of except in foreign lands, in my time.

Interesting.

I think studying a topic that is more objective like mathematics or engineering is a way to gain most knowledge without human subjectivity being too influential, but I’m sure it still influences aspects of them. What are the benefit/drawback balance for those paying through the nose for a University education during the past year? 

The past year apart, it will be interesting to see if my daughter eventually looks back on her ‘education’ as a whole. From my perspective, and I’ve heard the same from others, the love of school and learning disappeared from her when the big exams started looming. The pressure was on to ‘perform well’. it was the mindset at her school. It was/is seen as a good school, I’m not so sure. 

I dropped out of an engineering course at Uni to go flying, as so many of my fellow pilots (at least in South Africa) did. Unusually, my time at Uni was about the hardest that I’ve endured in my life. I was lost, having been told that I could no longer pursue my lifelong dream and in the final few months, very lonely. I missed my parents and the life in Africa. I had never even considered the possibility of doing anything else but flying, from the time we first flew to Zambia. 

My wife’s time at Uni was ‘the best’! She has great memories of many happy times, I would say that like you, they are around social events and experiences. That’s why she has encouraged our daughter to go. And I’m not really in disagreement, but I do think the time that having a bit of paper on the wall to prove your value is coming to a close. 

How do others see their time at Uni? It might be interesting to start a thread to find out?

Typoz & I were talking about our Uni (or other further education) experiences and I was wondering how they might be seen in retrospect by others.

Any thoughts? Or indeed thoughts about education in general.

I went to a Catholic College for my undegrad and it was a really good choice IMO.

The school wasn't very strict on doctrine so you had a lot of discussion between people of different religions/beliefs, different politics, etc. You also ended up working alongside these people to achieve various goals like when some of us risked expulsion by sitting in the university president's office to protest the use of what was basically slave labor at the time. Marxist types side-by-side with Catholics inspired by John Paul II's commitment to the exploited worker.

It was also good to be in a place where the paranormal could be discussed with ease, I found many of my classmates were willing to talk about experiences they'd had.

I mainly remember my time in university as the time when the paranormal forced its way into my life. It was a time typified by stress headaches and isolation as I was forced to consider and accept things I'd previously believed impossible with no support. I'd already been diagnosed with my genetic condition years earlier, even though my vision was not too badly affected by that point in my opinion at that time, though it was certainly affected. Which had already meant that I was cut off from any field I'd genuinely wanted to go into, and so had already entered university late since I was going for plan D at that point. So having that on top of it only made things worse. It was when I inevitably chose to go full in on the path of developing magic and I see it as the period where my life was truly stolen from me and I sought and still seek revenge on the paranormal for demolishing whatever semblance of happiness I might've had otherwise.

I fully admit that half the reason my life has been so shit has probably been my fault. I've never been someone who's good with people emotions and generally think that people need to take care of their own shit first before coming to me to cry about their problems. And I take full responsibility for frying my entire chakra network in october 2010, and losing everything I'd built up to that point. Something I'm still recovering from to this day. But I've done my best to try to at least salvage something from it. But all I seem to keep getting is shitty situations, horrible people who waste my time, money, and effort when I try helping them, and genetic defects. I look back on it as a time when I still had grit and determination as a part of my character, which now has been largely replaced with cynicism, anger and burnout with the occasional period of suicidal depression. So there is a lot of nostalgia for it, as I remember all the magic I was getting done, when I was outright controlling the wind and had trained myself to the point where I could create a gust at will and was actively training to weaponize that, with success. Though the length of time makes me constantly second guess myself now, thinking that surely that stuff never really happened because its so beyond what my life is now.

But some small part of me always refuses to quit entirely, plus I've had the sporadic support of others at key moments to keep me going. So I'm still at it, slowly but surely, luckily all the groundwork is long done. Besides, if I finally succeed after all the shit I've gone through, that will feel absolutely. amazing. I can't deny that as much as I complain about it, I hae had an enormous amount of help with this, especially from spirits. And my eyes did mean I was in an incredibly unique position that allowed me to work on this to teh degree that I did due to having access to disability pay so I wouldn't need to work, Which is a huge part of teh reason I've thrown myself into it so completely. I feel like if I were to stop then I'd be throwing away all of those peoples time and effort regardless of what plane they inhabit as well as this incredible opportunity to create magic for the world. And the progress that parapsychology has made in the last decade has been nothing but encouraging to me and constantly reaffirms that I chose teh right path, even if it is incredibly difficult. Its far more worth doing than just going to school to get a job in my opinion.

Universities were already a waste of time back then, the time has long passed for that piece of paper to be worth anything in my opinion. I mean, there's a good reason why there's such a huge "unschooling" movement these days. I am at this pointy a firm believer that school is not a place for smart or ambitious people, its a place if you're lazy and just want a job working for someone else to pay bills while you distract yourself with TV and fast food from the student debt you'll be paying till you're 40's if you're lucky. As far as I'm concerned if you're interested in a topic, just go learn it, huge amounts of high quality resources are available for free online these days. Hell there's even an Open University if you want. You don't need to pay for school, you just need to do it. Unless you want a job working for someone else that is, then that piece of paper still matters. Because all universities are is glorified vocational schools, you don't go there for education or learning, you go there to get a slightly better paying job than being a waiter but with 5X the overhead. That has only gotten worse since I left with all the political stuff.

Universities were already a waste of time back then, the time has long passed for that piece of paper to be worth anything in my opinion. I mean, there's a good reason why there's such a huge "unschooling" movement these days. I am at this pointy a firm believer that school is not a place for smart or ambitious people, its a place if you're lazy and just want a job working for someone else to pay bills while you distract yourself with TV and fast food from the student debt you'll be paying till you're 40's if you're lucky. As far as I'm concerned if you're interested in a topic, just go learn it, huge amounts of high quality resources are available for free online these days. Hell there's even an Open University if you want. You don't need to pay for school, you just need to do it. Unless you want a job working for someone else that is, then that piece of paper still matters. Because all universities are is glorified vocational schools, you don't go there for education or learning, you go there to get a slightly better paying job than being a waiter but with 5X the overhead. That has only gotten worse since I left with all the political stuff.

Thanks for that. I tend to agree with a lot of what you say in your paragraph I quoted above.I guess most young people don’t have much of an idea what they’re going to do with their life aged 18. I might not have had any interest or experience with the paranormal until decades later, but I knew what I wanted to do with my life from an early age. I can see that Maeve more or less considers me an idiot.  I can understand why, as I get older I care less about what others think of me where she seems is some ways to be ‘terrified’ around strangers. Maeve’s male friends all seem to hold me in high regard. I will yap happily away, leaving her cringing with embarrassment. She and her mum have a closer relationship as she gains maturity. She has always talked about everything openly with both of us, which is great, if a bit uncomfy at times. She has little interest in anything I have an interest in with the exception of music. She permanently listens to music, I fear for her hearing in future, but any such warnings fall on deaf ears. (Drum roll/cymbal crash)

So although I have many important things I have learned and would like to pass on to her, I have come to realise that we are on separate journeys and she must learn her own lessons. Although this may be somewhat frustrating I must let both it and Maeve go. In a way I am thankful that she is independent and not too close, I know that we all love each other deeply. I do feel that one reason I might have survived the stroke was so that I could be an important pillar for her growing up. If she does stick with astrology all the way through to a profession, I definitely think she will have a talent for it. I am encouraged that she is not willing to throw away a passion for the sake of conformity. 

It’s all very interesting ‘stuff’.

I was outright controlling the wind and had trained myself to the point where I could create a gust at will

Just an aside but this is really interesting. As a child when playing with my sister and cousins I picked up a plastic detached table leg and started pretending it was a sword/wand. Swung it around while imitating magical "spell-talk" I'd seen in movies but specifically calling upon the "gods of the wind".

It started getting windier and windier, and half-believing and half-amused at the coincidence I kept going until finally my sister cried out for me to stop and we ran inside out of fear. The wind stopped rising in force and eventually died down.

Curious that you took it much farther than I did, applying actual control, but it does make me more confident that what happened wasn't mere coincidence.

I'll add another couple of comments about my own experience. For me university was an obvious second choice.

My first choice had been to go straight into employment, get some training as part of that job and take things from there. I went to one job interview in my chosen field, computer programming. It appeared I was already over-qualified at the age of 18, as I didn't get the job and it was subsequently re-advertised with lower educational requirements stated. I thought that was quite funny.

It was a period of fairly high (and growing) unemployment, I didn't know what else to do. Education was an open doorway - and it was completely free. No fees, accommodation and living expenses paid for as well. Those were the days. Though those from a more wealthy family background were expected to contribute towards those living and accommodation expenses, which often meant that reluctance or genuine difficulty of parents to contribute left some of the better-off students struggling financially.  So I went to university because I didn't know what else to do.

Afterwards, I was still aimless, had various jobs. And lots of not working too. As well as that, did some more education which was presented as work-oriented. But in fact it was just fun, it was education for its own sake - free again of course - and I enjoyed that enormously.

Eventually, eleven years after that first job interview as a programmer, I got my first 'proper' job. As a trainee programmer. Strange the way the world works.

But I learned a lot in those intervening years, even the apparently aimless ones. All of it was beneficial. Nothing is ever really wasted.

But I learned a lot in those intervening years, even the apparently aimless ones. All of it was beneficial. Nothing is ever really wasted.

I tend to agree. 

Just an aside but this is really interesting. As a child when playing with my sister and cousins I picked up a plastic detached table leg and started pretending it was a sword/wand. Swung it around while imitating magical "spell-talk" I'd seen in movies but specifically calling upon the "gods of the wind".

It started getting windier and windier, and half-believing and half-amused at the coincidence I kept going until finally my sister cried out for me to stop and we ran inside out of fear. The wind stopped rising in force and eventually died down.

Curious that you took it much farther than I did, applying actual control, but it does make me more confident that what happened wasn't mere coincidence.

Yeah wind is kinda unique in that it has functionally zero resistance due to differential heating caused by the earth rotating. Back then I was already getting a lot of strong paranormal attack stuff happening as well as possible UFO type stuff which is what started the whole thing, and I felt that I needed something that I could use as both transportation and defence because I felt that I needed to go out into the world and try to investigate things firsthand because anyone can say anything on the internet. Wind fit that bill the best, its light and thus easy to move, its everywhere so its not like I'll be in a situation where I can't utilise it. Furthermore it gives you access to some of the most powerful things in nature, that being lightning and fire. Lightning because you can run the air against itself, strip off a whole bunch of electrons, and build up pretty massive static charge which you can then direct. And naturally that can also be used for pure heat effects.

Wind's biggest problem is that by its nature of how it responds to pressure and temperature changes as well as being a gas you can't control it in any direct way and that can break some peoples minds. You have to do everything indirectly, it really does require you do philosophically be okay with lack of control in order to use. That and you pretty much have to be outdoors to make full use of it. At my best, before I fried myself, I could create a gust of wind at will, but I couldn't control the direction of it very well, that and compression were largely what I was still refining.

I had no belief in any of the past life stuff at all at that point, as far as I was concerned it was just a story. but I couldn't deny all the research I'd done into physics up to that point trying to find plausible scientific reasons for what was happening in the story so that if and when I ever wrote it I would be able to give more explanation for things beyond "cuz magic" and was finding, to my surprise, that it was harder to find things that couldn't happen in known physics than what could. So I had this incredibly detailed and lengthy set of training instructions that I'd decided to put into practice and see if it really worked, and it did. It was always intended to go beyond wind control towards direct energy control like I would like to do these days but I haven't gotten that far yet.

Also, as you may know Dani Caputi has done some research on people claiming to be able to influence the wind. Not sure what the results are though.