Enlightenment, I used to understand it as the state of being enlightened which requires more that one person.  Just like the meaning in the story From Life of a Sensuous Woman. The woman was being enlightened by a man at the end, she changed her mind from commit suicide to devote herself to meditation. But, In the What is Enlightenment? by Immanuel Kant, he described Enlightenment as  man’s ability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. He believed that Enlightenment is based on freedom– everyone can use his or her reasons at any time in any place.

I think Kant’s points really make sense. He showed us the proper attitude toward learning and life. Society in 2017 is very different compare to society in 18th century, we do not have much restrictions on what we can think or express. But, many of us are still bounded by ourselves (we try to avoid questioning or challenging things that other people gave us because our laziness and helplessness). We get use to follow other people’s thought, advice, or etc…  For example,  Math. Since my minor is math, I took relatively more math courses than  business major with other minor. I think I never questioned about how we got the formula or theories. I took those formula or theories as facts without thinking. I do not want to dig into it because it is more works for me. Doing this does not harm my math course grade but it certainly harms my  progress in Math. If everyone is doing the same thing (take knowledge from another as facts without thinking), the society wouldn’t progress, the human would not progress.

The motto: Dare to know! should be our ideal attitude toward learning and life. We should have our own thought, ability of independent and rational thinking, and try to explore and understand things rather than take it as facts from others.