The stimulus of knowledge is difficult to disregard today where information penetrates our world even through closed ‘windows’. Reduced to sounds and colourful graphics, the prompts to know, command immediate sensory engagement. We click thoughtlessly and are instantly led to the world of an idea noisied by ads. The rush upon encountering an interesting headline or an aesthetic picture does not last long enough for us to stay or even if we stay, to continue our research. We know something somewhat and that’s that. Learning, however, requires one to explore continually, correlate ideas, and apply them to make one’s contribution.
In an era, where even books are commodified, and delivery is promised within seconds, there is little learning happening. We read to chase targets, devouring more in a month than we should, annually. Although a story may be purged out of memory, its atmosphere remains alive within our consciousness and affects how we perceive new knowledge. But no tangible results may be ascribed to a disorganised learning process.
Information overload handicaps us with the sheer excess of thoughts we have. Our failure to register anything we ingest leads to information decay, and causes, subsequently, a learning paralysis. It’s important that a person, who seeks fulfilling intellectual journeys, practises what is termed as ‘learning hygiene’.
Learning hygiene is the ability to read, listen to, or experience diverse knowledge, consuming it in healthy amounts that one may regularly manage to impact its retention. It involves condensing matter obtained from different sources, reviewing summaries, often juxtaposing and seeing ideas in the light of one another. As concepts sink in, and relationships emerge, one must seek to delineate these connections. Simply put, before one explores other avenues of research, the information in the mind should be assimilated.
Those who identify as students for life and constantly seek to improve understanding may find this relevant. Learning hygiene, when it entails organisation of material followed by the award of time and space to the mind to withdraw, can prove to be an effective tool in elevating imagination and paving the way for deeper awareness, bringing in innumerable discoveries.
Consider an artist who recognises her creative process, determined by her constraints and idiosyncrasies. She learns across disciplines, marrying contrasting theories, and unearthing subtle ironies in the models that exist as subject matter in her field. Gradually, her thoughts get simplified and her style is streamlined. When she effectively balances her input and output, waters her leisure with the indispensable ‘nothing’, articulates questions for answers, and lets herself stumble upon what she least expects, it allows her the freedom to experience the luxury of taking in as much as she wants while ensuring the new layers of light settle well upon her form, so, when she finally creates, this knowledge of years reflects thoroughly in the intricacies of her offering, in the gravity of her gift.
The access to profundity in life is guaranteed through constant learning, and, practising hygiene is a vital facet of this undeniably spiritual process.
Geetika Kohli is a multilingual author and entrepreneur from Jammu & Kashmir. Founder of Thinksta, an EduTechn Start-up.