When I finished school I knew a lot more about rugby than philosophy. I knew about parade drill and military discipline but little of anthropology or sociology, disciplines that could have been useful in my future career. There was no geology, palaeontology or biology; no health science, no art appreciation, no music knowledge of consequence.
At one time I had thought of being a race caller or radio announcer, but my diction was poor. My mother sent me to private elocution classes, bless her heart, but I was a very ordinary pupil. So, perhaps by default, I became a teacher – handicapped by dyslexia, my narrow Christian upbringing, and the limitation of being literate in only one language. I prided myself that I was better than I was. And now, aged 78, and writing a memoir, I am still struggling with lack of depth in my knowledge of existentialism, teleology, and the physics of the universe.
Does life require me to do better? That is what I have to ask. And maybe the answer is ‘no’. Yet I wonder whether I shouldn’t answer ‘yes’ in some things. My brain has limitations, but it also has capacities which I probably underestimate. Learning is still possible and will happen if the need arises and the desire is there. I know I should never lose my sense of wonder and the University of the Third Age is always  calling.