I’ve signed up for some photo lessons with Christine Glade of Manchester. They begin next Thursday. A friend was surprised. You take pretty good photos, he said. Thanks, I replied, but I’m just beginning to take good photos. I want to learn how the camera works so I can take photos that are much better. He thought it was a waste of time and money. I don’t think so. I have a new Canon 5D Mark III and it does a lot of things I can’t quite imagine.  I appreciate having it, and it cost a lot of money and I want to do justice to it. And I want to take better photos. So back to school, where I have never previously learned much or done well. Poor Christine.

As a writer and reporter, I have spent a lot of time around some brilliant people, people who might be called intellectuals. I have noticed this about them. The more they learn, the more they see how little they know. They rarely have answers, always are seeking them.  One Nobel Laureate writer told me once in an interview that no human, no matter how bright, could learn even a microscopic amount about anything in the world. Real intelligence, he said, is knowing that you must be learning, changing, growing all the time, right up to the end. That, he said, is what the smart men (and women) do. Smart people are humble, not arrogant, curious, not didactic, open-minded, not rigid. The listen. They learn. They grow. They change.

The Smart Man knows he knows little or nothing. He knows he needs to listen rather than talk. He knows he does not know what other people ought to do, or how they ought to live. He tells his stories, but he wants to hear the stories of others more. I’ve been taking photographs for five or six years, and know little or nothing about my camera, or about the photographic process. There are all kinds of things about light and color I want to do that I don’t know how to do. The Smart Man is always learning, and never forgets that in the scheme of things, he knows nothing. Can’t wait for my lessons. I feel this can take me to a whole other level. I want to get better every single day.