This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks.
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"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch
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I deliberately chose this as my first quote because it relates to the idea behind this book and the effect quotes have on us. What is the meaning of kindle? To kindle means to start a fire or to arouse or inspire a feeling or idea. Does that mean we have to be careful of what we feed our mind? Is there such a thing as a good fire and a bad fire? Some fires can indeed be toxic like the burning of tyres. I am thinking a good fire is like a campfire with marshmallows roasting and singing kumbaya. A bad fire would be if we allowed it to spread and cause a forest fire that burned the village down. Hopefully our bad singing causes the rain to fall and out the fire before that happens.
The other aspect of this quote is that we do not just seek knowledge, we must act on that knowledge. We must process what we learn. We must create new knowledge. We sometimes have to discard old ways of thinking and doing things that are not helpful. We have to burn bridges so to speak. What useful things does a fire produce? It produces light. In the olden days that is all the light they had. That and the moon and the sun. Light is like wisdom. Light is like ... there is a word at the back of mind that I am struggling to bring forth ... ah yes ... enlightenment. What about the idiom, burn to learn? Normally this means pain as a teacher, failure as fuel, and adversity as the spark for growth. But Plutarch's quote has me imagining "burn to learn" differently. That is the beauty of quotes. That is the beauty of thought. That is the beauty of imagination. There does not have to be a fire for me to see or feel a fire.
I wonder if any of this has anything to do with the naming of the Amazon Kindle. My friend Gemini tells me that yes, "Kindle" was chosen as it means to ignite a fire, metaphorically representing how reading sparks imagination, knowledge, and a passion for learning in the mind. I think our education system needs to be overhauled with this thinking in mind. An education system that teaches us how to think. How to be lifelong learners. Look how easily "burn to learn" becomes "born to learn". How to be a good human. We need to move away from an education system that focuses on competition and memorisation (filling our memory) for passing exams and getting high paying jobs (filling our pockets). We are not meant to be robots in a broken system of profits that does not care about us. Those who benefit from this do not want us to realise this. We need a focus on love and kindness for the betterment of humanity. We need to ignite generations inspired by doing good and inspired by God.
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