What I Have Learned
Fuller reflects on a lifetime of disciplined, progressive learning — likening it to muscle development through day-by-day lifting of progressively heavier weights — in a contribution written partly in verse.
Core structure
- How Little I Know
- Chapter 1 — Preface
- Chapter 2 — How Little I Know
Main ideas
- I recall that thirty-eight years ago I invented a routine somewhat similar to muscle development accomplished through a day-by-day lifting of progressively heavier weights
- The idea for the "What I Have Learned" series came from four short lines in The Practical Cogitator, edited by Charles Curtis and Ferris Greenslet
Why it matters
The series was sparked by four lines from Charles Beard, written in response to George Counts's question about how long it would take to tell all he had learned from a lifetime's study of history. The Practical Cogitator, first published in 1945 and reissued in 1962, is described as one of the most compact and satisfying intellectual feasts of the post-World War II years — and the frame for Fuller's own reflection on what he has learned.
Sources
- what_i_have_learned/ — book project directory (repo-local source tree)
- what_i_have_learned/index.md — book project index
- what_i_have_learned/what_i_have_learned.md — full text