Some insights from my pocket on learning:

Some insights from my pocket on learning:


It is easy to say that “you should learn something”. A person might even acknowledge that they need to learn it. But what it takes to learn a thing is the acknowledgement of their need/needs. If a person doesn’t think that they need a particular thing, they will never want to have it. And if they don’t want to have it, they will not indulge their efforts in trying to have it. And in that case, the only thing left with you is your “comfort and no need to learn a thing attitude”. This attitude is good for a virtual world, as in real world the need for continuous learning is more than required.

To be able to learn something is a skill.

There are number of attitudes by which a person learns something:

1) One might just learn something to complete a particular task at that particular moment.

2) One may try to learn something to use the learning for the present task and then to use it for completing this particular task at a later time.

3) Or one may learn something, mull over it, use it now, later, and draw inferences out of this learning so that they extrapolate it in all new activities they try. While this kind of learning is done there is a positive and a negative prospect to it.

i) Positive: you will take less time and less effort to learn anything new, as you would have reference of mistakes and will know the pattern of how your own brain works.

ii) Negative: Our brain processes so many things together that this learning and extrapolation activity might lead you to use it even when you don’t need it.



Therefore it is important to be very careful while developing this skill. Continuous contemplation about your activities and the pattern your brain uses to learn something is the key to finding this clarity.

Learning is essential in everything we do otherwise we are as good as a standstill rock. Probably even a rock learns something with time and its own experiences. It withers with time, it is drenched when it rains, and it crushes into shards and pieces giving a way to a new stone and then a new rock.

We all say that we learn something, but learning is not just confined to our own perspective of a thing. With every other eye, and with every other hand, the meaning and usage of learning changes.
I am often perplexed to see how varied this learning could be. For example, I may learn to make an origami flower. My perspective of learning it could be home decor. My husband may take it as a creative usage of  free time. A visitor may think of it as a nice gift, and use it in that way. Another person might take make it nad use it in a whole different way which I cannot even perceive. With every use case of this product, the creative energy changes too.

When one is aware of the existence of more use cases of a particular learning, it is possible to think out of box when needed. This phrase "Think out of box" I am sure everybody has heard of. And I hope I am able to explain my perception of it.

According to me therefore, learning is one thing. The contemplation over what is learnt, to expand the horizon of its usage, and hence improvement of our daily life is what makes learning worth.

Remember to Remember!

A week ago I ran into a friend who was talking to another person when I saw her. She was just finishing up a lengthy conversation with him before she turned to me. When she came to me she embarrassingly confessed that he was a person who she hadn't seen in a while, and she had no clue what the name of this person was.

She remembered precisely when she had met him first, or what did they talk about then, but name? She had not even a remote memory of that!
Well, as hilarious as this situation sounds, isnt it a bitter truth of our everyday life? We forget names more often than any other memory about a given event.
Haven't you encountered such a situation before?

I bet you have!

It is such a common thing that we often dont keep a record. And when it happens we feel bad and blame our memory saying that we have grown old and the brain no longer works as well as it used to do when we were younger. Actually that was the same expression which my friend used to describe how pathetic she was feeling about the whole incident.

We all hope and wish that the brain behaved a little better when such a thing happens.

Guess what!
Our brains have an incredible ability to reshape itself when it comes to learning. My inspiration to write this article was that friend with whom I wanted to share the little tips and tricks to increase the retention power of memory. I learnt these when I was in 9th grade in school. There was a seminar in the only five star hotel in my city, and somehow I found free passes to attend it. I, along with my friends went there to take a sneak peak of how a five star hotel looked liked. But the seminar turned out to be even more interesting.

The facilitator was teaching us, that it doesnt matter if you are growing old, you can still keep your memories intact and refreshed to be used, everytime after you reboot. Those tricks were:
1) Pay attention
2) Imagine and relate
3) Keep your brain healthy

1) Pay attention: Whatever is happening around us, brain has the tendency to register it. But the attention span that we provide to a particular instance decides whether or not we are going to have for a later use.

Have you heard of Deja vu?
It is an experience which makes one feel like they have lived the event before and are reliving it in the present moment. Deja vu occurs when the brain tries to register an event and do the memorization complete, but a thread is broken by another new memory. In such a case, when the previous event is repeated somehow, we get the notion that it has occurred before. This is Deja vu.
If we explore the concept of Deja vu, we will find out that it exhibits exact same process by which brain learns and remembers something. It is an aberration of this process which results in Deja vu.

2) Imagine and relate: Once taken into account the subject to be remembered whether is is a name or a number, now it is the time to relate. The brain does this relation making process voluntarily in most cases, but with certain ideas like a proper noun, this process needs to be conscientiuously repeated in order to retain. Say you are introduced to a person named "Sarah Walker". Work on these steps:
 i) Hear the name clearly, if needed ask to repeat
 ii) Relate the name to a person you already know has the same name
 iii) Then for the lsat name, say Sarah is very fit, or she is unfit, so you could phrase something like "Sarah walks to keep fit" or "Sarah doesnt walks to keep fit". Thats how you attributed her name to her personality , and so you wouldnt forget to recollect the next time she comes into reference.

3) Keep it healthy: Just like our body, our brain needs a regime, which when maintained and followed religiously keeps it healthy forever. Let's check out some of the methods to do this:
 i) Exercising body keeps minds also healthy
 ii) Taking complete 8 hours sleep to rejuvenate mind when you wake up.
 iii) Eating nutrious food (Like salad and protein)
 iv) Laugh, find reasosn to laugh, and if not that then laugh at not having any reasons to laugh.
 v)  Mind exercises with puzzles. Engage some of your time in puzzle. It is also a very good past time in seattle weather.
 vi) Avoid depression and anxiety. They create fatigue in the brain muscles.

In the end I would like to sum it up as:

Remember a name or a number
Whether it is 132 or cucumber
Sew it in a necklace of fables
And you will never have the strress to remember

A SHRUTI STORY

Shruti was a very beautiful girl. She worked at a local deli, and dreamt of a heroic life.

One day while working in the deli at after hours, cleaning up the place, and arranging for the next day chores, she heard something. She heard a screeching sound and was instantaneously alert to avoid any mishap. It was not the time when anybody would generally visit around the deli, and she was all alone for her defense if need be. Sneakily, she moved towards the back door, to find a wounded boy, about her own age. She called him and tapped him but he was not in a condition to reply anymore. She tried to lift and pull him inside, without any fear that this could turn out to be dangerous for her. The boy was unconscious. Shruti was worried now, as she couldn’t leave him inside the shop for the night, as it might not be safe for him or the shop. But she could not pull him out and take her to her house either.

She thought to give a call to the owner. Dialing the number there were hundreds of thoughts gushing around in her mind. The phone was ringing when she realized that the boy was gaining back his consciousness. She left the receiver and ran up to him. He murmured something, and fainted again.

Those words were “Shruti, you are the one…”

What she heard, invigorated her, and she decided to stay back in the deli for the night taking care of him, and also to find out the secret behind his words. She waited for him to get better and wake up to tell her the truth. Who was he? Where did he come from? What did he want? Why did he say what he said? Why was he unconscious? There were thousands of doubts in her mind and no clue to any answers. So she waited. Waited until the dawn, taking care of him, thinking about the possible answers to all those questions in her night reverie.

Is he a secret admirer? Or someone from the CIA, who has found her to be the one agent of all the best agents that they have, he came to get her and give her the news, but the bad guys found him. He possibly tried to fight them all, and somehow reached her, makes perfect sense with the words he uttered before fainting again. Or maybe he was in love with her, but there is another lover, and both of them wrestled to win her, and finally he did, he is not that bad looking after all! Or maybe he is someone from the outer space, who had been observing her since a long time, and now he decided to finally meet her, but something went wrong with his space shuttle, and he was hurt.

WHO IS HE AFTER ALL?

It was morning, the boy looked better, she had already cleaned his wounds. He woke up, looked up at her, like he wanted something very badly, and then he said”Shruti... you are the one who ordered the installation of room heater? My owner has apologized for the delay, as the equipment was not on time. I am here to convey his message, and while finding you, I ran into an accident yesterday… I am sorry for the inconvenience and I am thankful to you for taking care of me...”

And there she stood… smiling…

An Epiphany about technology!

We were just talking about where this whole technological revolution was turning to? My husband is a niche software programmer while my brother in law is an application manager in the IT industry. They have struggled to remain in the core development cum research part of the software industry. And therefore they have a perfectly valid reason to worry about what’s going on with the technology. Both of these people are not very happy with the way the nature of work, which has turned into a service field compared to the research and core development field as they had always expected it to be.

 Technological revolution just like any other revolution of this sort, like for example Industrial revolution, has same pattern. Industrial revolution created tools and machines and then went on to create facilities using those tools, same thing is to happen with technological tools, viz.. the software and the apps, and then, they will create tools to enhance the living standards of a common man. After some time the science revolution (the science revolutions never end. They keep up in parallel with whatever else is happening in the world.) in terms of all the research on subjects like string theory and unified physics (what Nassim Haramein) suggests will all converge in the software field somehow and we will have something to perceive in the real sense, may be for example we will be able to visualize all the dimensions. 

Its just like it always happens, we discover a tool like fire and then build various usages of it and around it, and then it is linked with science. Chemistry and physics are used to understand the nature of fire to understand its better usage and to control it better, and then we use and abuse it after that. Its a pattern which has always lingered and will always linger becoming a part of a giant circle which converges itself after going around making a familiar pattern. 

     

      My inclination has always been towards any new discovery in science. I love math and then its description through physics. Per all of the new discoveries in the pure physical realm lately, has been happening towards finding about the reason and purpose of existence of human race. So I would really like the software to become capable of making itself usable to find out the ultimate truth in that arena. But of course, software is now to become a tool for common usage in daily living. 

Live yourself, don't blame it!

One day while walking along a street and day dreaming, just thinking about some stuff,  I suddenly realized a truck was driving much too close to me. As I had only a fraction of second to jump out of the way and save myself. I was totally disoriented at the moment, but soon a sense a relief flooded over me. As my mind cleared, I realized, what could have happened if I had not gotten out of the way in time.

As I progressed towards my destination, being more aware of my surroundings, I was thinking how we really learn about things. My thoughts had become more focused and I felt the seriousness that this incident had planted into me. I made a decision to be more careful and conscious about the world around me.

It is easy to learn about things in a theoretical manner. We also say that we learn practically. But often what make us learn things best, are our failure. Failures have the potential to cause tremors in our whole being.

I feel that I have become more responsible person after this incident. I now care about my family and about the people who may or may not be dependent on me, but need me.

My point is, we certainly need some tremors in life to realize the importance of our own being.

How complacently do we live, don’t we?

We eat just anything we want. Whether it is a full of cholesterol, or is a street side dirty food. We drink water from just any place, we cross roads unconsciously listening to songs or talking to people over phone. We do all kinds of careless stuff, that may draw us to a near hazardous circumstances, and yet what we do is we keep being complacent about it, without the thought of those who care about us.

Most of us have thought at some point that why are we even living in this world? We may have also thought of it as purposeless. But it is not. Life is important. A person who loves you, knows the importance of your being, even if you don’t.

There is nothing else but love that we are responsible for in our lives. We do things for love, we take care of people who love us.

But our biggest responsibility is to Love our own self first. It is not wrong to love others, but it is also very important to love ourselves. Live for ourselves. Because this need to love oneself eventually leads to loving others. If we could be loyal to ourselves and love our soul, our being, It is the best thing that could happen to us.

We humans have the capability to forgive others of their biggest mistakes, but we often keep ourselves unforgiven in our own eyes.

If we stop reprimanding ourselves, we will see how beautiful this life becomes. It is easy to live without carrying the burden of guilt or blame on our shoulders. Life is much easier then.

All that is needed is living life. And living life comes not only with happiness but also with failures and bad times. Regretting about bad times caused by just anybody, whether its you or it is someone else, is just not worth it. The show must go on. It shouldn’t be ended due to yours or others mistakes.

When I say forgive yourself, I do not want you to make excuses for your failure. What I mean is to forgive yourself, and move on with a conviction that the mistake wouldn’t happen again. That’s how we move in life. Not forgiving yourself, keeps you stuck in a loop of guilt and blame. This mindset causes more failures and now you are prepared to make excuses.

We don’t need to justify for our deeds in front of anyone, as we are the ones to repent or bask in the glory. No one else does so on our behalf.

Jamie Ann Richardson who is a wife, mother and author for online and print publications writes in one of her posts: Once I ran out of excuses, I reclaimed my life, now I don’t need excuses.