vesterberg.se

I have been thinking for a while along the lines of how to be a learning person. Learning how to learn. Learning how to be a learner. How does that sound? I would like to be a learning person in all areas of my life. We so easily become like stiffened clay when we grow up. We know what we know and we do not really listen in a discussion and are not willing to examine the worlds of other people. We become like professional advocates and defend our own ideas. Think of a little child, how curious they are, how willing to learn and try out new things. Learning seems so natural and spontaneous during the first years. They explore the world, they learn how to talk and walk. How to coordinate the muscles and keep the balance is so complex and yet they just learn how to do it.

All of us are living with mental models of the world around us. We have opinions about things, sometimes strong. We do generalizations all the time and continue to build on our model. Our own mental model can be our worst enemy in life. Like an impenetrable sarcophagus. It can hinder us from looking at things from a different perspective than our own. It hinders the westerner from seeing that his lifestyle is ruining the earth. It hinders a man from discovering the needs of his wife. He feels safe in his own world. And yet it is not the reality.

Timothy Gallwey wrote a book on how to improve in Tennis called “The Inner Game of Tennis”. In it he talks about how to be aware of your thoughts and actions, cooperating with yourself and learning how to learn. He found out that the principles could be applied to other areas and inspired Barry Green to write, “The Inner Game of Music”, a very interesting book. We have some eternal truths here, folks.

I can’t help thinking of something that in electronics is called a feedback loop. A device with a feedback loop monitors the output (result) and feeds part of it back to the input and that way improves and adjusts the result. This is a continuous process.

Yesterday I recorded my band when we played together and listened to it afterwards. I noticed some bad habits on my part. I thought I was playing in one way, but the recording revealed that it sounded otherwise. If I paid attention to it, I could hear it and if I am willing and acknowledge it, I can try to make a change.

We can shy away from feedback. We can accept and be glad for it when it comes. But we can also strive for feedback, creating opportunities for it. Let’s challenge our own mental models, our own opinion of people, our own values. Let’s look around. Let’s listen next time our child, wife, husband or neighbor talks to us. Let’s listen to the needs of our society and let it affect us.