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