Post-school there were skills I avidly wanted to learn, even to the point of spending cash: ski-ing, French, and now singing. "Wanting" made all the difference of course and some competence was achieved in each. But what is learning (ie, the process, not the synonym for knowledge)?
Repetition, or learning by rote, is despised because it is said to bypass the tender twitching heart of the subject matter. Pretentious bollocks. Learning ski-ing, for instance, involves overcoming the body's instinctive reaction to menacing forces. Socratic dialogue just doesn't work. Rise, dust off the snow, repeat, this time obeying the instructor. The body doesn't know best.
Learning is the search for a pattern, a matrix which we may impose on our thinking processes and on our body for later access. Data, both intellectual and physical, are added piecemeal - as with a spreadsheet. The embryonic matrix causes the data to interact, expanding the matrix's scope. Thus we learn.
Singing involves both intellect and body but you'd expect me to say that.
Learning is hard work and easily resisted. But enthusiasm - preferably an unhealthy obsession - conquers all. Overweening pride in one's achievement, regarded as impolite or un-British, is another effective asset. The cliché says learning makes you humble. More bollocks.
Learning has no fixed end. Without application it may fade. It must also be renewed. Most attempts at learning fail, suggesting humankind is predominantly lazy. Faced with learning the unlearned resort to insult, thinly disguised envy. The unlearned deceive themselves: I could do that, they say, and “could” echoes in their hollow interior.
Now read the comment.
Roderick (or Robbie if you must): You won't remember me, I am your Ghost of Christmas Past, Barrett Bonden. Your other self, a simple artisan posting under the banner of Works Well, often about mechanical, electrical, electro-mechanical and other utilitarian matters. Liked for my honesty and straightforwardness, eventually kicked into the long grass when you chose to become arty-farty and start wrestling with abstractions. Forgetting your modest (very modest) place in the pantheon of thought.
ReplyDeleteI foresaw this day many moons ago. When you would choose to go all - I believe the cleverclogs call it - ontological. Metaphysics dealing with the nature of being, forsooth! You should know better for, like me, you lack the education. Cobbler stick to thy last: nuts and bolts are your fodder. Cut your clothes from humility not pretentiousness. Understand your limitations and the effects of age.
Chances are mine will be the only comment. If there are others they will be more in sorrow than in anger. You will become an object of pity, avoided just in case what you suffer from turns out to be infectious.
"Now read the comment" in red boldface. Why not make that a link? If this is ouroborosity, then you may well be an ouroborostic. A peddler of thoughts of wholeness and infinity. A small inspiration, but fun - thanks.
ReplyDeleteDon't listen to Barrett (can I call him Barry?)! He wants to live again. I am thinking about what you (The Robbie you) have said about the value of repetition and rote learning, and that learning is the search for pattern. I think you are right. Certainly in the various arts and sciences, one learns this way. We have to develop technique and learn standard norms before we can break free and express ourselves. If that is one's goal.
ReplyDeleteedsbath/Colette: I wanted to test myself; make what I hoped would be an original observation. Even if it brought no responses. For an hour or so the post stood alone, a shorn lamb to the wind. Then, quite quickly, my mojo began to leak away. I added the BB comment to forestall the more obvious comments, should any occur. Later, totally lacking in mojo, a veritable mole in the White House, I added the line in red.
ReplyDeleteA lack of faith on my part, I owe you an apology. Both of you have proved capable of picking up the baton and running with it. The sort of cyber-acquaintances I need and look for.
edsbath: A link to what? I don't understand. Meanwhile let me damn you from here to Eternity. My vocabulary is usually up to the exigencies of blogging but I was forced to look up the o-word. My defence would be I suffer from a self-inflicted form of schizophrenia and still share my personality with BB. I wouldn't eat him for words. Too gristly.
Colette: No, Barry is not possible. BB was and is me, my blogonym between May 4 2008 and November 29 2011 when I then attempted felo-de-se but failed. BB was more honest and less cruel than me, more worthwhile in his original form (bosun to Jack Aubrey in the O'Brian 20-novel series), better with his hands, braver. His comment was intended to subvert all originality in the post, proving I could, if called upon, pass the Gerald Ford test as delineated by LBJ ("So dumb he couldn't chew gum and think.")
I think we all aim to express ourselves (as opposed to simply communicate) even when it's nothing more than a chat at the check-out. We want to be more than the words.