Learning from Experience

 The Chinese philosopher and sage known to the West as Confucius wrote, "Experience is like a lantern facing backwards; it only illuminates the part of the way that we have already passed."

And that is true, so far as it goes. But I have an issue with his inclusion of the word "only" - because each one of us is the sum of our past experiences. The lessons they can teach us are so important, and can influence how we behave in the part of our lives that is to come. And we are able to apply what we have learned in our present and future lives, if we choose. There's a wonderful passage in Neil Gaiman's book, Neverwhere, in which the hero, Richard, has just entered the world of London Below, and is befriended by a girl called Anaesthesia. He has no understanding of how London Below works, and she has to look after him. At one point, they hide from some strangers, and when they have passed, Richard asks her, "What makes you think that they wouldn't have been pleased to see us?" 

Gaiman comments, "She looked at him rather sadly, like a mother trying to explain to an infant that, yes, this flame was hot too. All flames were hot. Trust her, please."

It is easier for us to learn from our experiences if we have someone wiser or more knowledgeable than we are to explain how the world works. Often this is a parent, but it may be a teacher or a minister or manager or other kind of mentor. Without such people, I think our lives would be more difficult, and we would be more prone to repeat our mistakes, rather than learning from them.

So for example, if we have been treated with kindness, we will be more likely to treat others that way. But if we have been treated badly, hurt, abused, oppressed, our experiences may have taught us that the world is an angry, dangerous place, and that others cannot be trusted. It takes a good deal of work and/or a wise mentor to hold and guide us through the process, to overcome the impact of negative experiences and move on; to learn to trust again.

A wonderful example of this was what happened in South Africa at the end of apartheid. Archbiship Desmond Tutu writes about this in God Has A Dream. "One of the things we learned in South Africa is that there is no true security from the barrel of a gun.... There is no peace without justice, and safety only comes when desperation ends. Inevitably it is when people sit down and talk that desperation ends. Negotiations happen not between friends; negotiations happen between enemies. And a surprising thing does seems to take place... enemies begin to find that they can actually become friends, or at least collaborators for the common good. ... Of course, you must have leaders who are willing to take risks and not just seeking to satisfy the often extreme feelings of their constituencies. They have to lead by leading and be ready to compromise, to accommodate, and not to be intransigent, not to assert that they have a bottom line."

Good things happened because people like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu himself learned from their past experiences that there had to be a better way of living, one which could rise above what their people had suffered, and work towards peace and reconciliation.

So let us shine that lantern on our past experiences and discern what we can learn from them, so that we can become happier, wiser, more compassionate people.