The Journey Within

When I said learning less everyday, I didn’t think that emotions played a big part. I know that the more I learn, I seem to know less about the world around me. Maybe my tag line should read “learning less about the world everyday”, but that’s not true either. I wanted to learn the way I’m wired to learn, not the way I was taught to learn. I somehow think that our brain can process and learn at a much easier and more efficient way. Somehow, our education has dumbed down our ability to learn that way.

Logic seems to be the order of the day when learning. Going one step to the next, finishing one step before learning the next step. I believe the steps should differ by people, I guess that’s another story altogether. What I recently found out is that emotion plays a big part. It’s our short cut towards processing logic.

Picked this idea from a book called Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb who quoted a Neurobiologist called Anthonio Damasio on the power of emotions.

If we don’t have any emotions to guide us in our daily lives, it will take us an eternity (or a very long time) to make even a very simple decision, like getting out of bed in the morning. This is how important emotion is. Also known as “lubricant to reason”.

But we don’t like some emotions like anger or hatred, and prefer other emotions like happiness and contentment. By trying to control an emotion (anger) at the expense of another (happiness) seems like a futile method. Imagine hating someone so much that hitting the person would actually give you great pleasure, but you can’t and that emotion gets bottled up to become anger. So what should you do?

Since emotions are the all important decision maker, it seems only appropriate that they should follow another all important law in nature – the physical law of conservation of energy, i.e. energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.

Under any circumstances, we will have emotions. If you are angry, you can’t just remain numb and not do something about it. We can’t kid ourselves that the anger is actually under control when it’s merely in prison, hiding until some form of outlet is found.

A healthier way to be rid of anger is not to remove it, but to change the form of it. Er… I can’t believe I just wrote that. Does it work? Changing a form of emotion to another form? It’s like diverting the emotion away from yourself and back again in a more fruitful form, instead of using the emotion to hit something, or someone! By hitting something like a wall, you will also get and equal and opposite reaction from the wall back to your fist – not a great way to treat your fist!

So instead of releasing the emotion directly, try changing the form of the emotion to something more fruitful, more positive. Easier said than done. Plus, i’m not even sure if I’ve said anything in the past few paragraphs! It’s like trying to convey something from my brain and yet nothing concrete to show, just this vague idea that you can actually use emotion to your advantage if you treat it with respect and learn from the emotion at present.

Maybe that’s the trick. To be aware of the emotion first and then to divert it into a more fruitful form. Sounds like a sentence lifted directly from the pushing hands rule book:

First, listen to the intent of the enemy;

Then direct it away so that it doesn’t hurt both you and the enemy.

Translated to emotions:

First, listen to the intent of emotions,

Then direct it away so that it doesn’t hurt both you and the “enemy”.

Comprende? I don’t. Still learning less everyday…

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Related posts:

1. Arguing your way out of a fight
2. Learning less everyday
3. Techniques vs skill
4. In the mood for learning
5. The performing mind