A continual project of self-improvement

When I think about all the efforts I make at making my mind a little better equipped, a bit more efficient, perhaps even a trifle more pleased about the world it finds itself in, I think of a tiny essay by Logan Pearsall Smith, called "Edification" (this is it in full):

'I really must improve my mind," I tell myself, and once more begin to patch and repair that crazy structure. So I toil and toil on at the vain task of edification, though the wind tears off the tiles, the floors give way, the ceilings fall, strange birds build untidy nests in the rafters, and owls hoot and laugh in the tumbling chimneys.