Undergraduate / Brown Supplement - What don't you know?? Music and other things.. [5]

Prompt: French novelist Anatole France wrote: "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." What don't you know?

I wanted to know if I was answering the question properly!! Any suggestions would be helpful!

Look at the way a sea of stars dresses the black sky, the way summer leaves turn to orange and red, the way each unique snowflake falls in the winter. These phenomena of nature are in front of us every day, but its beauty never ceases to amaze me. And so the thought begins. Wherever you are sitting, just look around and everything that your eyes come in contact with has a question behind it. The age-old questions of "why?" and "how?" begin to fire in our brains, and curiosity takes over. They say that curiosity kills the cat, but I like to believe that curiosity and the desire to discover that which you do not know is what propagates life forward, whether on a global, national, or individual level. Curiosity stems from recognizing that there is so much left untapped in this world, awaiting people like you and I to stumble upon.

I remember sitting for my first piano lesson. The black and white keys were foreign to me and I could not tell the difference from a C and an F. Yet, the thought of entering this new world of language was intriguing and I feel deep into a life-long passion. My fingers grew stronger against the friction of the heavy keys and the black dots on a paper were no longer hieroglyphics. Feeling accomplished, I would swell with pride knowing that I made great progress for a student who started their studies late in the music world. As I played Chopin, Mozart, and Brahms, I would ostentatiously showcase my skills to my family and friends. And then, my pride would come crashing down as I watched an 8 year old boy play with ease, a piece that I had arduously worked to learn. Moments like these are what remind me that I am far from the finish line, from attaining absolute perfection and reaching a maximum limit of knowledge in music. Instead of intimidating me, this fact only increased my desire to expand my repertoire and voraciously devour more music.

The world moves perpetually because society does not know everything. When Anatole Francis says, "An education...is being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't," I believe she is referring to passion. One's education, whatever the subject, should be a matter of understanding that we can never know everything. This may seem disheartening, but to zealots, it is a thrilling adventure. Passion provides the understanding to accept what we know and utilize it to reach for what we do not know in the never-ending abyss of knowledge.

I will never know everything about music. I will never know every possible arrangement of notes. I will never know how to play every piece in the standard repertoire, nor will I ever know how to play in every musical culture possible. But living in the unknown ensue passion and curiosity, both which perpetuate our society forward.