A Love Letter to Learning

Dear …

Seventh-floor-library hideaways on a Saturday morning; Endless hours of Internet scrolling and clicking; Books on Italian phrases and Jane Goodall and ancient Hawaiian traditions; Tiresome lectures and late-night study sessions on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thank you.

Thank you for the last 14 years of loving to learn, and learning to love.

Thank you for expanding my horizons, opening doors of opportunity, and helping me to seize each day I’m given.

Thank you for the wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the inspiration of Rachel Carson, the kindness of Thich Nhat Hanh, and the bravery of Elizabeth Gilbert.

Thank you for the times I thought I knew, and the times I’ll never really know.

Thank you for the teachers, the professors, the lecturers, and the innovators. For their tireless, seemingly endless support for me and all my hopes and faults. For their dazzling desire to impart knowledge on those around them. For their constancy and stability, for all of the times I have leaned on their shoulders—my everlasting gratitude.

Thank you for the dreams and the schemes, the many wishes and endeavors I have tried. Some have succeeded. Some have failed. And I have learned through them both.

Thank you for shaping me, crafting me into a wholesome person. Without your wisdom, I would be but a small shell on the seashore. But with you, I can be a thousand different things — the birds in the sky, the racing wind, the music in the moment, the people of another generation.

Thank you: Without you, I would be nothing.

May you never cease to leave my side. May I never walk a moment in the darkness of deception, but stroll forward into the light of truth, information, and, above all, love.

May I never stop reading, thinking, growing, sharing, spilling, humbling, confessing.

May I never forget what a privilege you are to me. May I never squander nor sacrifice this gift.

May I inspire others towards you — you, a beacon of hope in a world clouded with discontentment, anger, and ignorance.

I will be waiting, until learning rights all wrongs.

With all my admiration,

BNB

This poem also appears on Medium