In the few years of martial arts that I’ve done, there have been a few lessons that I’ve taken away that are, I think, useful to thinking about education. Some of them have uncomfortable levels of orientalist overtones, but you can judge for yourself whether the content is worthwhile.
The first is “don’t go to treasure mountain and come away with stones” – perhaps an obvious idea. The concept is essentially that, given the opportunity for an education, do not squander it. There will, undoubtedly, be people around you who, on one level or another, will be at treasure mountain and only grab the stones, or only see stones. Yes, have fun, drink, socialize, do drugs, get high, get in fights, spend your life on Reddit, or playing games or whatever you feel constitutes being a young adult, but these are not the reason that you’re at university. You’re at university for your education. In order to see the treasure that you’re offered, you have to realize the stones for what they are: perhaps something good to sit on, but they’re a burden to carry away. That doesn’t mean, ‘don’t have fun’, it means, don’t make fun the reason that you’re here, with your educational experiences as the secondary precept. You don’t have to be at school to have fun, but without a massive amount of dedication you can only get qualifications and, hopefully, a critical education at educational institutions.
