I have a formal education, but there's a whole lot you don't

When Sixto Rodriguez, the elusive poet and musician, said, “I have a formal education, but there's a whole lot you don't learn in school. And you only have so much time to figure it out. No matter how cerebral, celestial, how ethnic, there's a span of time here,” he spoke as a man who had seen both the classroom and the street, both the dream and its decay. His words carry the weight of one who learned that life is a greater teacher than any institution, and that wisdom is not measured in degrees, but in experience, humility, and time. Beneath his quiet tone lies a profound meditation on mortality and learning — that no matter how vast our intellect or how diverse our background, our time to learn and to live is limited.

The origin of this quote is rooted in Rodriguez’s life itself — a story as poetic as his music. Born in Detroit to Mexican immigrants, he was a man of simple means but extraordinary depth. His songs spoke for the working class, the forgotten, the seekers of meaning. Though educated formally, he lived as a philosopher of the streets, his wisdom shaped by struggle and silence more than by study. For decades, he was believed dead, even as his music inspired revolutions across oceans. When the world rediscovered him through Searching for Sugar Man, his words about education and time gained new power — for he embodied them. He had learned, through hardship and obscurity, that the lessons that shape the soul often lie outside the walls of academia.

When he says, “There’s a whole lot you don’t learn in school,” Rodriguez reminds us that formal education, though vital, is incomplete. The schools may teach us to read, to calculate, to analyze — but they cannot teach us how to endure heartbreak, how to forgive, how to live with integrity when no one is watching. They cannot teach us the taste of loss, the rhythm of compassion, or the art of wonder. These are the teachings of life itself, offered through failure, friendship, and solitude. The truest lessons are often unplanned, whispered through suffering, and carried in the heart like secret fire.

In his words, “You only have so much time to figure it out,” we hear the voice of urgency and mortality. Life, to Rodriguez, is not a rehearsal — it is a single, fleeting opportunity to understand oneself and to contribute meaningfully to the world. The ancient philosophers spoke similarly: Socrates warned that the unexamined life is not worth living; Marcus Aurelius reminded his soldiers that time is slipping away with every breath. Rodriguez stands in their lineage, a modern sage reminding us that we are all students in the great classroom of existence, but our lessons must be learned swiftly, for the clock does not wait.

His reflection — “No matter how cerebral, celestial, how ethnic, there’s a span of time here” — holds both humility and universality. No matter how intelligent, spiritual, or culturally rooted one may be, all are bound by time. The scholar and the laborer, the saint and the skeptic, share the same horizon. Knowledge may elevate us, but it cannot make us eternal. Thus, Rodriguez teaches the wisdom of humility: that the measure of a life is not how much one knows, but how deeply one lives, how kindly one learns, and how gracefully one uses what time remains.

History offers many echoes of this truth. Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest minds in human history, died lamenting that he had “offended God and mankind by failing to practice more of my art.” Even he, who studied the heavens and anatomy, felt the brevity of life’s span. Like Rodriguez, Leonardo understood that the hunger for understanding can never be fully satisfied within the limits of time. This is not tragedy — it is the essence of being human. It is what drives us to keep seeking, to keep creating, to leave behind traces of wisdom for those who come after.

The lesson of Rodriguez’s words is clear and powerful: do not wait for life to teach you — learn as you live. Seek knowledge beyond the classroom; let every encounter be a lesson, every hardship a teacher. Understand that wisdom lies in listening — to elders, to nature, to your own conscience. And above all, remember the brevity of your days. Time is the great equalizer, and it grants each of us only a brief moment to love, to learn, and to leave meaning behind.

So let his words be carried like a song into the hearts of all who seek wisdom: education begins in school, but it continues until the last breath. Do not fear failure; it, too, is instruction. Do not hoard knowledge; share it, for that is how it becomes immortal. And when your span of time draws to its close, may you look upon your days not as wasted hours, but as a completed lesson — a life fully lived, and therefore, deeply learned.