Of Learning and Unlearning

We start our lives by learning many things at many levels - physical, mental, spiritual, spatial, etc. There is already a sentient being within us since our inception in the womb. At that level, we are simply an embryo learning to survive in the warmth of the womb growing ourselves through consuming the food provided. Once we are out in the world of the living, we are in awe and wonder. Mostly, we mimic things to get a taste of the way of life developed on earth.

Through mimicking and expressing ourselves at the most basic level, we start learning things, the way of life. Since we are a blank slate apart from the high intensity of emotions that we feel and express, we start filling that slate in a hurry to achieve a certain depth that would enable us to express our feelings at a more acceptable level around us. More or less unbeknownst to us, this is the phase when stringent conditioning engulfs us. If we are lucky, the toll that this initial conditioning will exact from us will be bearable. But that is not the case mainly, especially if, when we grow up, we genuinely become a discerning person who is perceptive enough to access the knowledge within ourselves.

At some point in our lives, we all reach a juncture that shows us what we are made up of, at least superficially. If at this moment, we decide to shed some things from our personality, we realize it is not an easy task. We have grown up with certain foundations unbeknownst to our present selves. Initially, one attempts to scratch the surface of this foundation to know themselves better, and the limits set unknowingly. Realizing that this conscious effort is taking us down into the stagnant corner of our unconscious, we become scared, and most of us, after many interventions in knowing and trying to change this corner lose this battle and create a hypocritical comfort zone.

This comfort zone comprises superficially processing and acknowledging new knowledge that could help us change for the better. Still, the blindfold that is our comfort zone prevents us from imbibing and inculcating it safely within us. This safety net of ours is, in reality, taking us farther away from a genuine security about our surroundings and the life we are living.

This false security feels like an achievement, and that is the main reason that unlearning becomes a harsh and challenging process. Mainly because unlearning might not always make one more secure and in a better position. This happens because unlearning creates a certain void that cannot always be filled with what knowledge or learning we already have. No! Sometimes we have to go to new places to learn new things that could fill this void. But the truth is that this void always existed and has just come to the surface of our foundations to be removed for good. This removal should take place in a manner that doesn’t destroy the foundation but rather refurbishes it with more robust material.

Unlearning, although challenging and harsh, creates humongous solidarity and security within the self. The bold strokes that unlearning offers are created by the self who has learned things under the veil of mimicking. Finally, the self is realizing itself, and in doing so, chiseling happens at a more conscious level than before. This process becomes the self, discovering the self, giving us the feeling that we are surfing through a beautiful yet harsh sea on our own, making ourselves through sailing and adjusting the boat of our perception. This enables and empowers within us the power and beauty of self that we had lost learning the ways of the world. Sailing in this conundrum, hoping

to get out of it, we learn to sail and build our boat deftly.

As we grow more adept in these harsh waters of unlearning, we realize the things we have missed and the detours we should have taken. So we try to pass on our deftness to the next generation in an imposing manner forgetting that our exclusive situations have made us adept, so the most we could do for the benefit of ourselves and the next generation is to make ourselves more perceptive and open to go out of the comfort zone we have settled for. Secondly, as we grow more adept, we want to share our deftness with others, and here we enter into a learning phase knowingly. This learning phase has the advantage of the knowledge of permutations and combinations governed by our unlearning. Still, it carries with it particular false security that we have traveled these waters of unlearning and can again do it.

Now arises the greatest unlearning of all, and that is one cannot unlearn enough to know thy self. To know oneself, one needs to introspect and reflect the similarities between a learning and an unlearning.

By Shourya Chourey

Writer