Learning to Learn

In case this statistic slipped by you in our federal government’s firehose of facts and falsities, the feds value a human life at $10 million to $15 million.

This is based on the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL), which measures how much society is willing to pay to reduce the risk of a fatality. For example, if 100,000 people are each willing to pay $100 to eliminate a 1-in-100,000 chance of death, the collective VSL is $10 million.

Federal agencies use VSL to perform cost-benefit analyses on safety, environmental, and transportation regulations. 

I looked up this information yesterday because tomorrow would have been my father’s birthday and, well, I was just curious about the many ways to ponder the value of his life and its impact on my own.

My father’s ambition when he was graduated from Perth Amboy High School was to be an attorney, but he came of age in the wake of the Great Depression and he had to enter the workplace instead, as a laborer.

By the time I came along, he had established his credentials. He could:

·      Drive a truck for the U.S. Army engineering corps

·      Hang wallpaper

·      Paint a house

·      Repair cars

·      Build furniture

·      Sew slipcovers for sofas and chairs, and curtains for windows

·      Build a doghouse

·      Put up a fence

·      Work as an ironworker in constructing whole buildings

·      Pass Civil Service exams to become a cop and then a sergeant

·      Tend bar

·      Dispatch anything from squad cars to taxicabs

They used to call guys like him a “Jack of All Trades.” Today we call it lifelong learning.

The National Center for Health Statistics tells us that men who reach 65 have an average 19.5 to 19.8 more years ahead of them (20.8 to 21 years for women). 

What are we going to do with all this newfound time? If you’re a lifelong learner – plenty, because you understand that learning is not a place, but a process whose endpoint is never-ending.

Learning as we used to understand it occurred in institutions designed to deliver education. The informal learning that is lifelong is most often pursued outside those walls.

A lot has been written about the benefits of lifelong learning: personal development, employment and earnings, economics, sense of wellbeing – even as a defense against dementia. Governments are promoting lifelong learning as a way to nurture competitiveness, innovation, and growth. Some governments see lifelong learning as contributing to social cohesion.

But what about the value of a life? Does lifelong learning heighten the value of our lives?

My father was deft at adding value to his life by using his hands to shape the physical environment around him. Lacking his manual aptitude, I’ve brought value to my life through my writing. I’ve tried to add to its value through continued learning. 

In my sixties, for example, I learned to swim, to snorkel, to sail, to operate two well-regarded bed-and-breakfasts. I’ve taught myself to cook well enough to serve paying guests. I published five books and some three dozen poems. I guide cancer patients in writing poems to ease the stress of their disease. I conduct day-long and weekend retreats and a bi-weekly Zoom workshop in writing healing poetry. Next month I join hospice to bring comforting poems to patients and their families. 

Mary Ann Evans, the acclaimed English novelist of the Victorian era who wrote under the pen name George Eliot, said it well: "It's never too late to be what you might have been."