Does formal education have more value than informal education?

It's after midnight, as it so often is when I write these posts.  This post will be scheduled for tomorrow morning, and when that day comes I hope both you and I have a good day.

My dog is snoring beside me, and my mother is already in bed.  I question what to write.  I write a sentence, and then delete it and this I do over and over again.  I'm extremely aware that this is  public blog, and as such anybody can read it.  I'm also aware that if I don't put some of myself into this blog, nobody will want to read it.  I have to put my emotions, my day to day activities, and a bit of who I am in this blog, to make it personal.

At the same time, I love to learn, and I spend many evenings doing just that: learning.  I am formally educated from more than one post-secondary educational institution.  I've done correspondence and in person learning.  I've written tests, written essays, and attended lectures, and yet I'm beginning to wonder if any of that really means more than the learning I do each day.  Does formal education mean more than informal education?  I never thought so before, but I disagree with my past self.

My mother, used to informally educate herself at the public library.  Before the internet, there were reference books.  She spent afternoons going to the library, and just reading any kind of reference books that interested her.  Did the knowledge she gained, have any less value because she didn't pay for it?

Does knowledge need a professor to teach it, to be valued?  It does in this culture.  But why?

I just spent another evening learning about intersex conditions.  I will probably spent countless more hours before I'm done with the subject, and when I am done, I'll go on to another subject with equal fascination.  Does all that research have any less value than the research those who are paying to research do?  I don't think so.

What do you think?  Do you like to learn?  Do you research things on your own?

Please answer in the comments below.

I want to live in a world where empathy and love are more important than weight and beauty.

I'm looking forward to a time, when people aren't judged by things that don't matter.

If everybody in the world was skinny, would the world improve?  Imagine.  The so-called obesity epidemic is over.  Everybody magically lost weight.  Would the world improve?  Would all the wars end?  Would refugees be able to go home?  Would illness, homelessness, and domestic abuse end?

No.  Yet somehow we think our lives will improve.  Why?

If everybody turned beautiful, would the world improve?  Would you're live improve if you never had to look at an ugly person again?  Every woman had her cinderella storey, in which some fairy godmother came around, and gave her beauty, would child abuse end?  What about the school drop out rates?  Childhood poverty?  Would any of it change?

No.  Yet somehow people spend an inordinate amount of time and money,  changing our looks.  But why?  Does it help anybody?  Does an ugly person make the world even worse by being ugly?

Why do we judge each other on superficial things?

I once listened to a radio interview, in which they were discussing "that over-weight singer Adele."  They didn't discuss her singing, her accomplishments or anything.  They just talked about her weight.  As if that made any difference.

We judge each other on weight, beauty, race, gender, sexual-orientation, health, wealth, and a whole bunch of other things we can't change about ourselves.

Why?  If we were all the same would we quit fighting?

Why don't we judge each other on love, kindness, gentleness, empathy, understanding, and how we treat each other?

I want to live in that world.  The one where empathy and kindness are valued more than beauty and weight.  The one where love for others comes with privilege, not being white and male.

I want to live in a world, where domestic abuse is more of a crime than being black.  Where those who have power are the ones that earned it by their kindness, instead of bought it by their money.  Where somebody like Donald Trump isn't even considered good enough for leadership, because he's racist and sexist.  Where the term "but she has a good personality" doesn't exist.

Because what's wrong with having a good personality?