Learning What Was Never Meant to Be Lost

I have written about education before, because it is something that occupies me deeply. Partly as a parent, and partly as a human being who never wants to stop learning. Not in the sense of collecting more skills or credentials, but in the quieter sense of remaining open, curious, and responsive to the world.

We tend to think of education as something we move through and then leave behind. A series of classrooms, exams, and milestones that eventually give way to “real life.” Learning, in this view, belongs to childhood and youth, while adulthood is reserved for work, responsibility, and repetition. If we are lucky, we are told, we might continue learning “for life,” as a supplement to what was laid down early on.

But what if the foundation itself is flawed?

What if many of us spend large parts of our adult lives trying, quietly, patiently, sometimes desperately, to recover forms of curiosity, creativity, and presence that were gradually disciplined out of us? What if lifelong learning is not always a sign of intellectual vitality, but sometimes a symptom of something that was interrupted too early?

In recent years, I have become increasingly interested in the idea of rewilding. Not only in relation to nature, time, and work, but also in relation to learning. Rewilding suggests that something living has been over-managed, simplified, or constrained, and now needs space to return to its own rhythms. Applied to human development, it raises an uncomfortable question: why do so many adults feel the need to rewild themselves at all?

This question leads naturally to another. What would education look like if it never required undoing? If it did not need to be supplemented later by courses in mindfulness, creativity, resilience, or “life skills”? What if learning were wild from the beginning?

The difference between rewilded education and lifelong learning: education lays the foundation, while lifelong learning is the ongoing, evolving journey. When it comes to children, it might even make more sense to talk about wilding rather than rewilding, as there isn’t necessarily much re going on. While rewilding seeks to restore or rekindle something lost, wilding allows children the freedom to explore, develop, and express their abilities without rigid constraints. If we succeed in wilding education for future generations, the need for rewilding later in life might not exist at all.

At its core, rewilding yourself means reclaiming something overtaken or forgotten — whether it’s your capacity for deep thought or your connection to nature. But if primary learning were inherently diverse, encouraged critical thinking, and was fueled by curiosity, there would be nothing to restore, nothing to rewild. Instead of an education system that needs to be undone, we could have one that is naturally wild, meaning fluid, responsive, and deeply connected to the world. In an ideal scenario, education wouldn’t require later deprogramming but would instead nurture individuality from the start, allowing each child to grow into their full potential without having to unlearn imposed limitations.

Wilded education focuses on creating an environment that nurtures exploration, self-expression, and a celebration of diverse talents. As my son once put it:

“Some of my friends excel at yoga, write beautiful letters, dance gracefully, and read aloud from textbooks. I’m not like them, but I shine in running, jumping, drawing, cooking, and caring for animals. That’s perfect because it would be really boring if we were all good at the same things.”

That does sound perfect to me.

But what happens when this natural diversity is suppressed? Just as monoculture farming strips an ecosystem of its resilience and richness, rigid educational structures and societal expectations can erode the organic, varied ways we learn and express ourselves. Over time, these structures may offer stability, but they can also disconnect us from our authentic selves, narrowing creativity, curiosity, and independent thought.

Rewilding becomes necessary when something vital has been lost. You may begin to feel that you’ve strayed too far from your true self. Maybe your creativity is dulled, your curiosity dimmed, your sense of wonder buried under years of conformity. If you feel disconnected from the world around you, constrained by rigid norms, or even paralyzed by the fear of becoming obsolete in an era of AI and automation, it might be time to rewild. However, rather than seeking something new, rewilding involves unveiling what has always been there, hidden beneath layers of expectation, habit, and fear.

Stepping into a rewilded life takes courage and boldness, but not in a reckless way. Sure it requires breaking out of comfort zones and taking risks, but with intention. There’s a balance that needs to be found that resembles Aristotle’s golden mean, where virtue lies between deficiency and excess. In Nicomachean Ethics (350 BCE), Aristotle explains that courage, for example, exists between cowardice and recklessness. Too little, and we shy away from challenges: too much, and we act without thought, recklessly and overly impulsively. Rewilding follows a similar path, as it involves embracing creativity and curiosity while avoiding both stagnation and complete chaos.

This concept of balance also aligns with Stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophy that has seen a resurgence in recent years — perhaps because, collectively, we are seeking stability in an increasingly chaotic world. Stoicism teaches living in harmony with nature, accepting what we cannot control, and cultivating virtues such as courage and self-discipline.Key Stoic philosophers like Seneca and Epictetus emphasized personal growth through self-reflection, intentional action, and resilience in the face of adversity.

Stoicism encourages embracing life’s challenges with a calm and steady mind, focusing on what is within our control and letting go of what is beyond it. Rather than chasing external validation or being swept up in societal expectations, Stoic practice fosters inner sovereignty as a way of moving through life with clarity and purpose, anchored in what truly matters. This aligns really well with rewilding, as both practices encourage a return to the essential: reclaiming time and energy, tuning into our deeper nature, and shedding the noise that keeps us from fully experiencing life.

Rewilding is a way of learning from within, drawing from Stoic wisdom to help us reconnect with our inner knowing, embrace personal growth, and find a natural rhythm between creativity, curiosity, and resilience.

Like Aristotle’s golden mean, it requires navigating the space between stagnation and chaos — staying true to ourselves without getting stuck in comfort or lost in reckless abandon. Rather than retreating from the world, rewilding brings us into it more fully, moving through life with presence, purpose, and an untamed spirit.