As I write, I am beginning to see learning as based on hermeneutics. We learn the world by reading it. We learn about our self by turning in and listening. In all this, we observe and hopefully find meaning. It could be in the form of words, images, and is just as easily what is left out. T. S. Eliot reminds us of the challenges of learning language and finding meaning them in. We learn, unlearn, relearn all in cyclical fashion. We read the world and try to make new sense of it with each iteration as we move back and forth between the whole and the parts to make sense of either. It might seem all a waste, but perhaps it is not.
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years–
Twenty years largely wasted, the years l’entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attemp
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate–but there is no competition–
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again; and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss
For us, there is only the trying, The rest is not our business.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
So beautifully illustrated as state of mind!
I think it, too. Interpretation makes us different and beautiful… the synergy of our senses and thoughts trying to find answers, to understand, to ‘read’ the world…
Life should be about reading the world.
One of my favourite thought process concepts – hermeneutics and one of my favourite poets! Great post.
Thank you Francis. One needs hermeneutics with Eliot’s poetry. The messages are not easily revealed.
I love T. S. . I don’t always understand what he is saying, but love the way he says it. >KB
I find he is a little circular in his writing and I have to read and re-read. I am not sure I got his message on this poem.
“…and every attempt/Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure….” Fantastic! Thank you for the intriguing and stimulating post, Ivon.
You are welcome and thank you for stopping.
Excellent. I really love TS Elliot. Thanks Ivon.
Thank you Sheri.