Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming to it lead
Quite Opposite — How complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —
~ Emily Dickinson
(The Poems of Emily Dickinson, #899)
I’m not quite sure what Emily is getting at with this poem but it did get me thinking. Many folks say that experience is the best teacher, but personally experiencing all that life has to offer would take forever and, in my mind, often amounts to wasting time and learning things the hard way. But is it any better to submit to the discipline given by other people, obeying potentially immoral rules from authorities that might oppress or harm ourselves or others? Perhaps experience and discipline are opposite sides of the same coin. Perhaps we are as likely as our teachers to make painful mistakes in judgment as we learn ways to make sense of the world.