Learning is one of the greatest gifts of life. No doubt about that. Since birth, every human being absorbs all the information he/she needs to acquire the capability of dealing with the outside world. A child learns to understand and to connect ideas and feelings, he gradually starts to speak and knows how to express his needs in words properly arranged. Then he finds out the best ways to relate to others.
After the first rudiments of culture, such as learning to read and write, an individual goes on assimilating new ideas and concepts by paying attention to what people, books or any other kind of written and visual matter tell him.
He is surrounded by numberless sources of information that contribute to his development as a functioning person in both society in general and his own environment. So far so good. Listening, reading, observing, moving around, reflecting, are all the usual means that made us reach the stage we are presently in. We are happy with what we know, and we (at least some of us) intend to continue learning forever. Also this is good, but only to a certain extent. Let’s see.
When we talk about learning in general, we usually think about “adding” something to the notions that we already have, we visualize an additional weight imposed upon our brain, a sort of actual mind-stuffing! New information, new ideas are introduced in our heads thanks to our capability of understanding and remembering. We are even proud of our job. But in order for this “job” to be useful and effective, some discrimination is necessary.
We don’t realize that simply adding more stuff is not what we actually need. Why? Because there are different kinds of “stuff.” There is the good stuff and there is the useless stuff (not to mention the “bad” stuff). What is advisable and even necessary, especially nowadays - when there is an exceedingly large amount of notions available in various and multiple ways, is not to go on indiscriminately accepting and assimilating anything
that comes along, without actually reflecting on the usefulness of the new notions, ideas and suggestions.
At this point, I am inclined to even say that not only should we endeavor to become aware of what we are paying attention and giving credit to, but we should start discarding a lot of junk that is clogging our learning channel.
We see too many videos, we read too many books and papers, we hear too many words, most of which are without a real fruitful meaning.
It’s a continuous flowing of images and ideas that enter our minds. As there are people who suffer from the disease of hoarding “things” in their homes, as they are psychologically unable of getting rid of any belongings of theirs (including trash!), so many “normal” people become hoarders of thoughts, more or less properly assimilated, they accept to be collectors of opinions that, of course, are never originally theirs.
When you have carefully listened and blindly accepted what others say, your conditioning makes you believe that you really “own” what you are talking about in your discussions and debates. When you believe what the world of advertising sneakily tries to convince you of (and you meekly proceed to buy the latest device thrown on the market at an always increasing speed!), you become a slave who is totally unaware of his condition.
Believing and assimilating everything (or almost) that you are presented with will keep filling your brain with a lot of extra stuff and this process might end up erasing who you originally are. You will become a “copy,” someone who is just like everybody else! But if you succeed in disposing of as much clutter as possible and make some space in your mind, you will see more clearly what is really good for you. Visualize a room so full of furniture that you can hardly move around and then imagine the same room with just the indispensable few pieces. Don’t you think that, besides having a really original, personal, elegant place, you feel that you can even “breathe” better?
— Elsa Franco Al Ghaslan, a Saudi English instructor and published author (in Italy), is a long-time scholar of positive thinking.
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Creative Thinking: It’s time to de-clutter
