Learning less everyday
This website has been undergoing some identity crisis lately. Well, the website can’t actually undergo identity crisis, but somehow, it’s easier to write when referring myself as a third party.
Anyway, as much as I want to “think and grow”, I’ve been reminded that “thinking” itself might be counter-productive to growing. As The Power of Now suggests, we are drawn to think, sometimes so much so that making “thinking” as an end itself. Doing puzzles, sudoku (which by the way if you haven’t checked this out, is highly addictive) etc are ways in which we engage our mind, apart from thinking about work, relationships, and life itself.
My Tai Ji teacher recently highlighted that (in general), people who needs to think a lot at work are normally those who progressed slowly in Tai Chi. I casually mentioned that I also fall into that category…. and then there was silence…. and then we laughed!
I think (yikes!) the “thinking” which is restricting growth is normally the conscious thinking that we do. Conscious learning cannot be applied at will. You can only hold so much thought at any one time. To react to an ever changing situation, conscious thinking is a poor processor. You need a processor which is much more intuitive and with potentially limitless capacity to adapt to our ever changing environment. I think we need to “push” conscious learning to the other-than-conscious mind. To learn less consciously and learn more intuitively.
I hope to use this as the theme for this blog from now on - learning less everyday. Let’s see where this will take us.
p/s: this reminds me very much of Yoda - unlearn what you have learnt. ![]()
This post has 4 comments
June 24th, 2007
Hey cool site design! I like the modified hemingway wp theme look
I hear ya about blog identity crisis. My blog started out as something much different than it is today. While I like what it has become, I still enjoy writing about my other interests (video game, technology, aquariums) but fear what might happen if I slip it in.
For me, it’s too hard to maintain multiple blogs. Personally, I feel taiji is a part of my life, not my life and I’m working on a way to emphasize that in the content of my blog
June 24th, 2007
Thanks wujimon. I enjoy reading about video game and technology as well, if you want to consider writing them.
I also find it hard to maintain multiple blogs. Incidentally, I’ve resurrected taijistudent.blogspot.com. I’ve been getting some questions there throughout the year even though it’s not very active. A niche blog might work better than an all encompassing one. Will see how it goes.
June 24th, 2007
I find that when I’m practicing zhan zhuang regularly, while I don’t come up with many answers; most of the questions tend to fade away.
June 26th, 2007
Talk about identity crisis haha. I’m undergoing major change myself, hopefully for the better. :p
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