As you’ve probably guessed, I’ve always been interested in learning. How it happens. Or why it doesn’t. Why sometimes it’s fast and why at some point it slows down. How come there are plateaus that can last quite a while and during which nothing seems to sink in. How do we know we've learned, and how do we measure that. How can we be sure.
Even questions on the nature of knowledge. The kind acquired through experience. The other by means of books. Some with the help of teachers. Are there differences. How is our personality affected. Is there ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’ knowledge.
I needed answers. It was of vital importance that I understood the mechanisms of learning. I had to develop alternatives. Work around traps. Compensate.
I explained that I was taxed by learning difficulties. My survival, especially as a kid, depended upon a spotless lack of memory. I couldn’t give it up. I was entirely built around the principle of the fugitive, the ephemeral. A sieve. A conduit. Knowledge enters, I process it, understand it, play with it, and then it leaks through, continues on its tour of the world, caught by another mind.
You must try to see my point-of-view. My learning difficulties were not, as such, a symptom. A problem. They were the cure. They represented the treatment I imposed on myself. It was a decision. Having to make do with what I had at my disposal.
I decided very early on, in my own personal antiquity, to drive out information. It was a conscious move. I therefore had a built-in trigger that I activated. The valve opens up. All gets ejected from my brain. I’m the one operating that machine.
Only in states of profound disconnection am I controlled by a handicap. At the mercy of the rules in the house of thoughts. But when I'm in the world, walking in it, I pull the ropes. I erase. It’s my own doing. So well performed that it eventually became a second nature.
Want to know how it works? It just requires practice. I go “bang” in my head. I use emotions, make them hit the solar plexus. It’s a bit painful, yes, but instantaneous. It’s a blow, physical. An inner punch. I feel it. It hurts. And all that needs to be obliterated in my mind vanishes. No trace. Gone. Not even rewritten by the subconscious. Information that will never be recovered. I can relearn it all over again, and there will not be the slightest hint of déjà vu.
You think, I’m sure, it’s a drastic form of denial and self-defense. Of course, it can be. But I don’t always use the method for such venial purposes. I have more creativity than that. Give some credit to your laolao.
Imagine that the discovery of something fills you with an amazing and unique joy, an incredibly deep excitement. Almost euphoria as you grasp, elated, the beauty of what you’ve come across.
Wouldn’t you like to relive that moment again and again?
I can.
Sometimes I’m so transported by what I see that I desperately want the experience both to last and to stop. I go bang. The happiness so intense that it’s almost intolerable. So I go bang. And one day, I’ll revisit again that very marvel that’s able to lift me all the way to ecstatic levels. And I’ll go bang. On and on.
Imagine a movie that carries you to such heights. I can watch it anew as if I had never seen it. I have a pile of bangs. I know where they are. When I feel strong, ready, I pick a bang. Read or watch it again, aware there will soon be a moment of vertigo where I’ll go bang.
I’m not using figures of speech here. This is exactly how it happens. I‘m a scrubber. I’m a cleaner. I scour my mind all the time. Immaculate. It’s a matter of mental hygiene for me. No real choice. A sanitary approach to life. Disinfecting the ground for thoughts and feelings. Because they tend to rot if left in the brain too long.
Some decompose faster than others, contaminating the lot, even the kind of daily information you need to function normally. How to dress yourself. How and when to eat. How to behave in general situations. You start rocking your body back and forth, staring at a void, reacting to nothing, deprived of the most basic instincts as thoughts and feelings get imbedded in the mind, poisoning their surroundings.
Of course, I can’t afford that.
So I throw recently acquired knowledge down the garbage chute. Wash the mind with a flow of cold, crisp amnesia. Efficient.
In primary school, a problem I had was to separate information. Whenever my inner storage went bang, all the content disappeared. Not practical. That made me look like an idiot. An image I resented.
I had to learn to make boxes. To label them. Things to throw away. Things to keep. Useful. Absolutely needed.
I struggled with those subtleties for years, making mistakes. Not controlling my gift so well. By the time I was a teenager, things had gone from bad to worst. I had periods where fundamental distinctions seemed clear and obeyed me. But often, they didn’t. Unable to sort out the shambles. Stuck with data on Althusser, but at a loss on how to get from one point to another in the city. Wandering aimlessly, momentarily not knowing what to do, where to go. Even my speech functions affected. Shit.
It took a great deal of time to introduce some order. At least, to give an impression of order when, below the surface, there were still lots of confused items.
Basically, I had to understand how learning occurred. It’s process. Create solutions. True, had to wipe clean sections of the mind, but I also had the certainty that some of the stuff could be retained, reused. Built upon. That’s the part I didn’t know how to inact.
In other words, I was getting tired. In mathematics, for example, I could excel. But it was a strain every damned time to relearn from scratch. All I ever did in school in those days was from a blank slate. I had to reconstruct the whole environment. No previous knowledge as a base. Everything forgotten. Not a trace to rely upon. And I would go all the way back to the beginnings of the universe and retravel the path to where I should have been at that point. Tedious. Exhausting.
But I managed. A solution to a problem taught in class. Of course, out of my mind it went. So I would stare at the problem. New, because I couldn’t remember. And I would tell myself that I was capable of figuring it out. Just use your brain, would I order myself. Be logical. Deduct. You don’t need factual information. Just reason. And most of the time, I would pull through. Creating the solution out of thin air. Maybe not the right answer, but a well-developed rationale. And as I improved, I got away with it.
And then, I entered full-fledged adulthood. Much upgrades were called for. I needed a job. I couldn’t walk in an office not remembering where the coffee machine I had been seen using the day before was. Had to remember names of colleagues. That of my boss primarily. All sorts of little details that truly made you look like a fool if you'd missed.
God, did I work hard. Developing methods. Systems. Structures, and inner structures. Devising complex networks of reminders. Refining arrangements of elaborate cross-referencing techniques to cover as much as I could. Orderliness, planning, procedures. They were all there, stretched to the limit, operating at their full potential, never slackening. Absolute tension and focus. Tremendous attention given to the systematization of actions.
You have no idea how many procedure manuals I wrote in the companies I worked for. That’s the first thing I would do. They loved me for it. But I did it for myself. Developing update action plans. Methodologies for data input. Information quality control methodologies. Fact checking processes.
Evenings, nights at home writing cards, filling notebooks, indexing particulars. Even conceived exhaustive lexicons almost everywhere I went, because I couldn’t remember the words I needed. Translation dictionaries for the staff, my way of building tools to make up for my own deficiencies.
I was so precise, thorough, well-organized. An exemplary employee. Taking upon my shoulders the full mandate of improving EVERYTHING. Creating circles to review time and time again the same information. Expert at flow charts, diagrams, connecting all the dots on paper, tables filled with verified figures, columns and lists. I loved it. I had found my world, my place, my playground. Somewhere I could be, exist, as I was. Blooming. Operational. Extending ad infinitum my mnemonic instruments.
To classify is to think, wrote George Perec. Indeed. And I made it. I became a ‘knowledgeable’ professional. Even had fun at it. And one day, the bangs became not so much a necessity, but a hobby.
Laolao
Even questions on the nature of knowledge. The kind acquired through experience. The other by means of books. Some with the help of teachers. Are there differences. How is our personality affected. Is there ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’ knowledge.
I needed answers. It was of vital importance that I understood the mechanisms of learning. I had to develop alternatives. Work around traps. Compensate.
I explained that I was taxed by learning difficulties. My survival, especially as a kid, depended upon a spotless lack of memory. I couldn’t give it up. I was entirely built around the principle of the fugitive, the ephemeral. A sieve. A conduit. Knowledge enters, I process it, understand it, play with it, and then it leaks through, continues on its tour of the world, caught by another mind.
You must try to see my point-of-view. My learning difficulties were not, as such, a symptom. A problem. They were the cure. They represented the treatment I imposed on myself. It was a decision. Having to make do with what I had at my disposal.
I decided very early on, in my own personal antiquity, to drive out information. It was a conscious move. I therefore had a built-in trigger that I activated. The valve opens up. All gets ejected from my brain. I’m the one operating that machine.
Only in states of profound disconnection am I controlled by a handicap. At the mercy of the rules in the house of thoughts. But when I'm in the world, walking in it, I pull the ropes. I erase. It’s my own doing. So well performed that it eventually became a second nature.
Want to know how it works? It just requires practice. I go “bang” in my head. I use emotions, make them hit the solar plexus. It’s a bit painful, yes, but instantaneous. It’s a blow, physical. An inner punch. I feel it. It hurts. And all that needs to be obliterated in my mind vanishes. No trace. Gone. Not even rewritten by the subconscious. Information that will never be recovered. I can relearn it all over again, and there will not be the slightest hint of déjà vu.
You think, I’m sure, it’s a drastic form of denial and self-defense. Of course, it can be. But I don’t always use the method for such venial purposes. I have more creativity than that. Give some credit to your laolao.
Imagine that the discovery of something fills you with an amazing and unique joy, an incredibly deep excitement. Almost euphoria as you grasp, elated, the beauty of what you’ve come across.
Wouldn’t you like to relive that moment again and again?
I can.
Sometimes I’m so transported by what I see that I desperately want the experience both to last and to stop. I go bang. The happiness so intense that it’s almost intolerable. So I go bang. And one day, I’ll revisit again that very marvel that’s able to lift me all the way to ecstatic levels. And I’ll go bang. On and on.
Imagine a movie that carries you to such heights. I can watch it anew as if I had never seen it. I have a pile of bangs. I know where they are. When I feel strong, ready, I pick a bang. Read or watch it again, aware there will soon be a moment of vertigo where I’ll go bang.
I’m not using figures of speech here. This is exactly how it happens. I‘m a scrubber. I’m a cleaner. I scour my mind all the time. Immaculate. It’s a matter of mental hygiene for me. No real choice. A sanitary approach to life. Disinfecting the ground for thoughts and feelings. Because they tend to rot if left in the brain too long.
Some decompose faster than others, contaminating the lot, even the kind of daily information you need to function normally. How to dress yourself. How and when to eat. How to behave in general situations. You start rocking your body back and forth, staring at a void, reacting to nothing, deprived of the most basic instincts as thoughts and feelings get imbedded in the mind, poisoning their surroundings.
Of course, I can’t afford that.
So I throw recently acquired knowledge down the garbage chute. Wash the mind with a flow of cold, crisp amnesia. Efficient.
In primary school, a problem I had was to separate information. Whenever my inner storage went bang, all the content disappeared. Not practical. That made me look like an idiot. An image I resented.
I had to learn to make boxes. To label them. Things to throw away. Things to keep. Useful. Absolutely needed.
I struggled with those subtleties for years, making mistakes. Not controlling my gift so well. By the time I was a teenager, things had gone from bad to worst. I had periods where fundamental distinctions seemed clear and obeyed me. But often, they didn’t. Unable to sort out the shambles. Stuck with data on Althusser, but at a loss on how to get from one point to another in the city. Wandering aimlessly, momentarily not knowing what to do, where to go. Even my speech functions affected. Shit.
It took a great deal of time to introduce some order. At least, to give an impression of order when, below the surface, there were still lots of confused items.
Basically, I had to understand how learning occurred. It’s process. Create solutions. True, had to wipe clean sections of the mind, but I also had the certainty that some of the stuff could be retained, reused. Built upon. That’s the part I didn’t know how to inact.
In other words, I was getting tired. In mathematics, for example, I could excel. But it was a strain every damned time to relearn from scratch. All I ever did in school in those days was from a blank slate. I had to reconstruct the whole environment. No previous knowledge as a base. Everything forgotten. Not a trace to rely upon. And I would go all the way back to the beginnings of the universe and retravel the path to where I should have been at that point. Tedious. Exhausting.
But I managed. A solution to a problem taught in class. Of course, out of my mind it went. So I would stare at the problem. New, because I couldn’t remember. And I would tell myself that I was capable of figuring it out. Just use your brain, would I order myself. Be logical. Deduct. You don’t need factual information. Just reason. And most of the time, I would pull through. Creating the solution out of thin air. Maybe not the right answer, but a well-developed rationale. And as I improved, I got away with it.
And then, I entered full-fledged adulthood. Much upgrades were called for. I needed a job. I couldn’t walk in an office not remembering where the coffee machine I had been seen using the day before was. Had to remember names of colleagues. That of my boss primarily. All sorts of little details that truly made you look like a fool if you'd missed.
God, did I work hard. Developing methods. Systems. Structures, and inner structures. Devising complex networks of reminders. Refining arrangements of elaborate cross-referencing techniques to cover as much as I could. Orderliness, planning, procedures. They were all there, stretched to the limit, operating at their full potential, never slackening. Absolute tension and focus. Tremendous attention given to the systematization of actions.
You have no idea how many procedure manuals I wrote in the companies I worked for. That’s the first thing I would do. They loved me for it. But I did it for myself. Developing update action plans. Methodologies for data input. Information quality control methodologies. Fact checking processes.
Evenings, nights at home writing cards, filling notebooks, indexing particulars. Even conceived exhaustive lexicons almost everywhere I went, because I couldn’t remember the words I needed. Translation dictionaries for the staff, my way of building tools to make up for my own deficiencies.
I was so precise, thorough, well-organized. An exemplary employee. Taking upon my shoulders the full mandate of improving EVERYTHING. Creating circles to review time and time again the same information. Expert at flow charts, diagrams, connecting all the dots on paper, tables filled with verified figures, columns and lists. I loved it. I had found my world, my place, my playground. Somewhere I could be, exist, as I was. Blooming. Operational. Extending ad infinitum my mnemonic instruments.
To classify is to think, wrote George Perec. Indeed. And I made it. I became a ‘knowledgeable’ professional. Even had fun at it. And one day, the bangs became not so much a necessity, but a hobby.
Laolao
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