In the words of my friend, the philosopher Dr. Ann Kerwin:
However cognitively tidy we strive to be, we cannot rigidly demarcate processes of learning and unlearning. Permeable, interdependent, they tend to somersault, and blend imperceptibly.
Learning is sometimes depicted as an endless shopping spree, a giddy accumulation of novel understandings, attitudes and skills. But, we also unlearn. Life, ever-fluid, prompts archival updates, obliging us to expunge, rearrange and make space for the new. Periodically, we discard facts past their prime. We jettison discredited opinions. We purge knowledge, attitudes and skills no longer useful, releasing once-cherished practices and paradigms.
Trifling or mind-altering, unlearnings have the potential to leaven or deflate. They can open our hearts or break them.
“The greatest enemy of one of our truths,” wrote William James, “may be the rest of our truths.” Once the game of learning is afoot, we may find ourselves tossing previously prized goods from our mental storehouse. Only then, perhaps, will solutions we crave wriggle into view.
However cognitively tidy we strive to be, we cannot rigidly demarcate processes of learning and unlearning. Permeable, interdependent, they tend to somersault, and blend imperceptibly.
Learning is sometimes depicted as an endless shopping spree, a giddy accumulation of novel understandings, attitudes and skills. But, we also unlearn. Life, ever-fluid, prompts archival updates, obliging us to expunge, rearrange and make space for the new. Periodically, we discard facts past their prime. We jettison discredited opinions. We purge knowledge, attitudes and skills no longer useful, releasing once-cherished practices and paradigms.
Trifling or mind-altering, unlearnings have the potential to leaven or deflate. They can open our hearts or break them.
“The greatest enemy of one of our truths,” wrote William James, “may be the rest of our truths.” Once the game of learning is afoot, we may find ourselves tossing previously prized goods from our mental storehouse. Only then, perhaps, will solutions we crave wriggle into view.
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