In Pursuit of Knowledge

My pursuit of knowledge never ends for the simple reason that there’s always something else to learn. I’ve been this way my entire life, probably as an extension of my love of reading. Reading helped me know things. Weirdly, though, I’ve always been fairly clueless about what goes on around me. If I could learn it in school or from book, that was great. If I had to observe people – not so much.

Anyway, I’ve just glommed onto something else to learn. My philosophy of life tends to circle around the big picture of life. I’m not a detail person – well, except for bookkeeping. I usually see the connections between things and want to explore how this affects that, and to follow the trail further, until I can see the whole web. I’ve ever actually seen that, of course, since the webs of life and the universe are far too huge and intricate for my puny brain to visualize. But I never stop trying.

This is why I prefer a holistic approach to my life. And it’s why, when I saw that an organization called the Regenerative Leadership Institute was offering a 72 hour online permaculture design course – for free – I had to jump on it. It’s taught by soil scientist Larry Korn. I’ve watched the first two videos and it’s fascinating.

Yeah, I know I should be writing my books and this could just be more procrastination. But consider: writing science fiction and fantasy requires worlds to be built. A better understanding of permaculture can only help in that regard. In fact, it’s exactly what I need to develop the world inside a hollow asteroid/spaceship in my novel, Verdandi, or the tangled web of life on the planet Verdandi, itself.

Science fiction writers can never stop learning.

If this subject interests you at all, run over here and sign up for the course. There are no tests, no schedule or textbooks, just a large and varied curriculum taught by professionals. For free. How awesome is that?

I’m looking forward to learning something!