Why Isn’t Learning Fun Anymore?

Rekindling my dormant curiosity by knowing God’s character

This article is part of the Claritas fall 2022 issue, Mystery. Read the full print release here.

BY ANNINA BRADLEY

When I was young, I ran on the playground with my shoes untied. I raced raindrops on car windows and watched ants carrying crumbs with amazement. I wanted to know why the grass became damp with morning dew—why the stars burned like little fires in the sky. No question was too big to ask, no mystery too great to ponder. 

By high school, however, my childlike wonder had dwindled. Pursuing knowledge became sitting at a desk with a textbook and pencil in hand—scribbling answers and dusting away eraser-shreds. If I put the time and effort in, I’d succeed on an exam. I’d check off a box. I happily set goals and achieved them, but was no longer so easily entranced by the intricacies of the universe.

Entering college, I felt myself moving further from my once-unquenchable curiosity. Still uncertain about what I wanted to study, I felt an urgency. My investment in knowledge turned financial. Instead of experiencing the joy and gratitude that comes with the privilege of learning, I became preoccupied with questions about my future career path and purpose. Taking classes began to feel like trying on clothes. What fits nicely? I sensed that whatever major I committed myself to would be an all-encapsulating, binding identity. 

I wasn’t alone feeling this way. The Cornell student body enters campus with diverse intellectual interests, attracted by the words “Any person, any study,” and departs mostly filling jobs in finance and consulting. Most Ivy League universities follow this trend. [1] An increasing number of students are abandoning their unique aspirations to instead find comfort in financial stability and well respected careers.

Over the course of a short decade, my own purpose for gaining knowledge had shifted from a genuine love of discovery to a preoccupation with my own security and self-fulfillment. Internally, I longed to learn for an end that wasn’t material. I hadn’t yet recognized that the pursuit of knowledge could be abstract—that by changing the posture of my heart, the ways in which I absorbed new information could be enhanced.  

According to Saint Augustine, whose desire for knowledge was insatiable, what one loves impacts one’s knowledge and understanding. [2]  From a Christian perspective, rightly-ordered “loves” can illuminate greater understanding. A love for God strengthens our desire to pursue knowledge by sparking within us an all-consuming desire to understand Him and become acquainted with His character. Because we believe God to be the creator through and for which all things were made, a love for God naturally translates to a desire to understand the greater mechanisms of the universe. [3]

A recent sermon I listened to spoke precisely to this idea. [4] There is an owner of gravity. A creator of thermodynamics. An author of languages. If God’s character is embedded in the physical laws of motion, the design of chemical molecules, and revealed in the syntax of literature, then seeking to understand all the complexity that surrounds us means interacting with His glory. This may seem lofty when you’re studying Organic Chemistry at 2 a.m., and all you can think about is how your laptop keyboard would make a very comfortable pillow. But the point is, when we consider the intricate and intentional design of our world, we no longer flip through textbook pages apathetically, but instead hunger for understanding. 

Additionally, possessing a knowledge of God calls us to abandon any identity founded in a declared major or scholarliness. Instead, we are welcomed into a new identity as followers of Christ, forever unchained from needing to worry about educational achievements or the merit of our future careers. In the Gospel of Matthew, God rhetorically asks why we worry, turning our eyes to beauty in nature: “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow… If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?” [5]

Re-focusing my attention on God’s promises and steadfastness grants me a freedom to learn without anxiously dwelling on how covered content might practically serve me in the future. As I still stand at a crossroads of intellectual development and embark on the years of college ahead of me, I find comfort knowing that I don’t have to have my life fully mapped out. It has already been carefully crafted, etched into time by my creator. 

Now, the rhythm of life—hustle and bustle with nothing but a protein bar for breakfast-type day—can make it so easy to get swept away by all of the things that deceptively promise to sustain us; stable careers and flow-chart plans might keep us afloat. It takes courage to live life as we are called to in Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” [6] If we aim to live set apart, God promises to change the lens through which we view the world, fundamentally transforming our priorities and the way we think. All of our pursuits, including that of knowledge, become ignited with purpose.

I return to the image of my younger self—frantically curious, turning over river rocks and building castles in the sand. Today, when I step outside, surrounded by trees ablaze with fiery color, my wonder is sparked with reason. For there exists a God who wrote the very laws that allow the sun to set and rise again. Knowing Him compels me to seek an understanding of the world He created in order to better steward it. 

Certainly, not every moment of my education will be pure fascination and enlightenment, sunshine and sitting on benches with a good book and a perfect breeze. Mid-term season will come with its anxieties; long readings and problem sets might still bring dread. 

Yet, standing upon this hilltop of vast opportunity, I can daily reflect on the privilege it is to receive a formative education. When a seminar discussion carries on after class or a complex topic finally clicks, something of God’s character might just be revealed. 

“Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice”  C.S Lewis wrote. [7] If all of us maintain an innate desire to learn and discover, let us louden the inner voice Lewis speaks of and let curiosity fuel our academic interactions. Let this voice reverberate across campus like the McGraw Tower chimes, transforming the way we collectively pursue knowledge.

This article appeared in Claritas’ Fall 2023 Mystery Issue.

SOURCES

[1] “Outcomes: Careers after Cornell.” College of Arts & Sciences. Accessed November 18, 2022. https://as.cornell.edu/careers/careers-after-cornell. 

[2] Augustinus, A. De Trinitate IX - X. (Circa AD 400).

[3] Colossians 1:16, (NIV)

[4] Muñoz, Isaís. Pastor at Grace Community Church. Cornell Class of '15.

[5] Matthew 6:28-30, (NIV)

[6] Romans 12:2, (NIV)

[7] Lewis, C.S. The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 1941.