Galileo Galeli said: "Truth is not found behind a man's reputation. Truth appears only when the answers to questions are searched out by a free mind. This is not the easy path in life but it is the most rewarding." Relate this to your learning experience in RP.
As I interpret the meaning from this amazing man’s phase about reputation and pre-judgement, I found a deep relation to it. As it does not only apply to RP as a school but to the external world we live in as a whole. Unaccountably many or most of us fall into the judgemental and superficial world we simply create and build boundaries to.
I understand how the truth is not found behind a man’s reputation is simply because the reputation can be self created and self imagined. For example in class, a seemingly outstanding student may boast of what he/she had achieved, earned or bought. That self proclaim creation may likely make up initial thoughts and images towards others. Therefore, the other people affected or blinded to see the real he/she will simply believe and create a self claim reputation about that person, but how true and how real is that student who boast will lay unknown unless they become relatively closer as friends. Taking the same example to give meaning to the second sentence, would be having a free mind in which then we only can find the truth. I fail to misunderstand this line because it is so very true. It is only with a free mind that we can find the optimum or whole truth. I would have a different perception of the “boastful” student if I have yet to meet him/her or missed out on the brags about his/her achievements and what not. From there, having the opportunity to know nothing about that person will in turn allow me to treat him/her as a normal student or classmate. From there getting to know the person without prior knowledge will enable me to know him/her better.
Apart from school life in RP where is happens ever so often, it can be seen from an example of buying a car. Cheery QQ is apparently known as a cheap and low performance car, made in cheap labour, China. Having known this, would I bother going to the show room of it or easily made my way to an awesomely proclaimed, BMW which is known to provide priceless performance? But assuming I did not know anything about Cheery QQ (“free mind”) in the first place and have not created any prior perception about the car, I might find that the car is simply a very practical, affordably priced, safe and has the ability to perform moderately well; I may not even consider to look into other made cars and the money saved from not buying an overpriced car can go into investments for houses. – Simply applying or swapping the example of cars to human, people, we would be most rewarded with unexpected appreciation, (“most rewarding but not an easy path.”)
Therefore, in all, I seek to walk in that uneasy path to find what is most rewarding and have the feel of positive unexpected outcome. Free the mind from judging others easily by having no resistance to solely wanting to know more about the person personally first. Because people tend to lose friendships, miss great opportunities to create various bonds such as relationships and friendships, spend unwisely and a whole lot more due to the un-free mind we mistakenly create and provoke.
