Learning Without Pride

At learning, we are all still becoming. None of us are masters of our own craft, not completely. Failure is a choice none can fully escape, and devotion is a path many will be tempted to abandon. To be compassionate about learning is to surrender pride to the cause you have chosen. For every path that perishes, there is a crooked stream. And when one crosses it unnoticed, he may fall or perish within its depth. No one is truly a master of what they know. Even if life never stopped teaching, we would never learn all that we desire to learn. You are only called a master because someone else has failed. You are only held high because the greater genius has not yet been born. So hold carefully to the thought of being the best. For in calling yourself the best, you may become a thorn, a replica, something to be discarded when time has found another. But then, should we stop learning? Should we stop striving to be the best at our craft? We should continue in whatever we are doing. But let us not hold pride above ourselves and think we are masters of our own destiny. For no matter how much we learn, no matter how fast we move, we are nothing without devotion. And when our devotion is gone, we may still be remembered, but another will take the crown. Then another will pass, and another will rise, until knowledge itself becomes greater than all who once claimed it. Our craft will pass away as nothing but a minor coincidence in time. So let us not hold ourselves to a standard we cannot defend against the test of history. Let us learn, and learn more. For what else should we do but stay close to the holy substance that cures the soul of past ignorance? Let us stay close to the learning of history, to the path that was carved for us so we could reach this far. For like those before us, we too will become a path someone else will crave. Greater masters will come. Greater devotees will rise. And many will come and go as they lose their hope. But still, let us learn.