One thing you can do to exponentially increase your propensity to learn.

Originally appeared on Medium

The Key Ingredient to an Open, Curious Mindset.png

Introduction

The practice being offered only applies to those of you who do not know everything. The number of people in this category — according to social media — is drastically decreasing.

Yet, for those of us who are finite in our cognitive and conscious ability and who have a limited amount of experience of the vast, infinite universe, the following recommendation may be suitable.

For us humans, in order to increase our potential for learning and our capacity for curiosity, we must find a way to transcend the singular viewpoint that we possess.

If you’ve already arrived at the full stature of human potential, read no further.

If you’re still in the process of being and becoming, let us begin.

What’s in the Way of Learning?

Before we can discuss the key ingredient to a learning mindset, we have to acknowledge the problem of learning.

Namely, why do we need to learn things in the first place?

Why don’t we just know everything?

Because human knowledge is limited to the capacity of the human person.

This is usually referred to as a perspective and, by nature, our perspective limits our understanding of the world to what comes through our own eyes. Technically, this is a question of epistemology — the study of how humans know things — and, particularly, a concept called “phenomenological egocentrism.” If you want to nerd out on that, have at it:

Are You Certain?
The nature of perspective, epistemology, and why we might not know everything

The problem for us is that — if we want to know things — our own minds and bodies are the biggest obstacle to the infinite universe. We can only see what we see through our limited purview. We are myopic (nearsighted) by nature.

Essentially, our perspective is centered around the self.

Ego. Centric.

If our knowledge is confined to whatever we have seen, the basic algorithm for learning means we have to see more than we currently do.

When we read a book, watch a video, discover new information, or witness something transformative, we are actively engaged in this process of seeing more than we currently do. Anytime we intake something new, we are defying our default, egocentric state.

To learn is to see.

In our cultural ethos, we spend a lot of time emphasizing these processes of learning — the content by which you can learn is seemingly infinite thanks to internet technology — but what makes learning possible receives less attention.

What is the action that allows us to move past where we are at present to see what we don’t currently see?

How do we go about knowing more than we currently know?

If we want to learn more about the world, we have to get out of our own way. The problem, of course, is that it is immensely difficult to get out of our own way.

However, there is a catalyzing cause of learning which, if we can foster it, we can catalyze an open, curious mindset.

Part One — What is Empathy?

Empathy is one of those concepts that most people have heard of, most people already constantly practice (though they may not realize it), and yet, most people can’t define what it is.

Simply by learning, you have practiced empathy to some degree and just by living around other people, you are constantly utilizing empathy in order to maintain relationships and to be able to communicate.

This, however, doesn’t mean that we practice empathy well.

It also does not imply that we know what we are doing.

So, what is empathy?

Fortunately, there is a technical definition. Empathy is:

Being able to take the perspective of another — to think, feel, & experience the world as if you are them.

If we are egocentric by nature, empathy is a means to force ourselves into functioning apart from that default. You are already going to be influenced and affected by outside stimuli and fellow human beings; the act of empathy, however, requires another level of deliberate, conscious, and calculated decision-making.

The act of inhabiting information that exists outside of yourself is what allows you to see the world from outside of your current perspective.

If egocentrism is the epistemological nightmare, empathy is the means to overcome egocentrism’s debilitating effects.

Being good at and aware of the empathic process is the key ingredient to exponentially increasing our potential to learn.

Part Two — The Process of Learning by Empathy

Though we might not consider empathy to be correlated with learning, the process of empathy is conveniently similar to what happens when we intake information. Empathy is a healthy and beneficial psychological exercise in its own right, but by knowing the details of how empathy works, we may find the potential correlation to be significantly beneficial.

If you want to learn, you need to actively force yourself to see more than you currently do.

Literally, as a psychological technique, this is called perspective-taking.

You take the perspective of something or someone and inhabit it as if it is your own. You try to occupy their world and bring yourself to see what they see.

For example, you are in a grocery store and, as you walk by the frozen food section, you hear a quiet sniffle that sounds like crying. You turn and you see someone sitting on the floor, face buried in their palms, weeping.

Your first thought might be,

“Hopefully they didn’t see me so that I can keep walking without feeling guilty.”

This would be the natural, egocentric default.

You might, however, wonder why they are crying. You may look around and see if you can piece together a narrative or draw conclusions. However, as you begin to inhabit the experience of what it is like to be so distraught that you break down in public, at a grocery store, in the frozen food section, you might even be catalyzed to respond with a form of compassion and join them in their suffering.

All because you saw more of the world than you did before.

Which is brought about by empathy.

How does this translate to learning? Well, hopefully, the situations are less dire. However, there are some steps that can assist us to actively engage an open, curious, learning mindset.

1 — Acknowledge Your Ineptitude

I’m not trying to be critical — this is simply a general human disposition:

We ain’t working with all the information.

Before you can embrace what you don’t know, you have to be honest about what you don’t know. The ancient, eccentric philosopher named Socrates is my favorite example of this. He would walk around, stopping random people on the street, and strike up a conversation:

Excuse me. I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m incredibly ignorant. Could you please tell me what love is?

He did this because he wanted to expose how little we actually know, even though we exude utter confidence in our intellectual superiority. Socrates, by the way, was claimed to be the wisest person in the world by the Oracle at Delphi. Why? Because he was honest about what he didn’t know.

Be aware of your limitations.

You have a perspective that is constrained to the confines of your mind and the limitations of your experience in time and space. You are composed of a variety of influences, situations, histories, backgrounds, nuances, and insights that define how you understand reality.

Which means you don’t know everything.

Once you acknowledge that, you can embrace the opportunity to see more.

Honesty about your current reality opens us up that there is probably something to be learned here.

2 — Pay Attention

Now that you are honest that you don’t know everything, you have to begin looking for opportunities to learn. You have to actively search for opportunities in the world where you have a blank space in your knowledge base.

Good news. This is — literally — everywhere!

Just as every moment, situation, and person is an opportunity to practice empathy and promote an interconnected, relational response of compassion, every conceptual moment of the universe is beckoning for you to inhabit the potential wisdom waiting to be uncovered.

There is a certain imagination necessary to learn.

You have to nurture the ability to make something real that is not currently real to you.

What is around you that you don’t (yet) know?

Do you have the imagination to recognize the infinite opportunities of learning in your midst?

3 — Attribution

How do we actually get the information into our heads? Well, there is a lot of neuroscience involved with how you remember things. Yet, getting those things into your brain must happen before you can remember them.

It is important to note that we already do this naturally — every sense observation is the act of placing information into your brain for further distribution. However, our sensory engagement is limited and selective — we typically pay the most attention to what is familiar, comfortable, or desirable.

Now that we are honest about what we don’t know and are paying attention, we can direct our sensory engagement to the vast wealth of knowledge waiting to be uncovered.

In the process of empathy, this is called attribution — where you attribute the information that exists outside of you and deduce its content and meaning.

Attribution is the process of gathering information by utilizing the different perspectives being offered and coming to conclusions about it.

For example, let’s say you see a leaf fall from a tree.

First, you acknowledge that you don’t know everything about that leaf, that tree, or that process you just witnessed.
Second, you consider that this is an opportunity to know more about the world than you currently do.
Third, you begin accessing the information that you don’t have and drawing conclusions (with both logic and science, of course).

You might inspect the tree, do an experiment, ask an expert, read a book, or take a look at an article titled, “Why Do Leaves Change Color?”

You are attributing information by taking on a perspective that you do not currently have.

It ought to be stated that this is best done by asking questions.

Questions take you where answers cannot.

4 — Accommodation

Wonderful, but you still need to do something with that information you’ve attributed and gathered by looking outside of yourself.

Alas, the lynchpin of empathy is the final step where you respond to the information you’ve acquired and act accordingly.

Once you begin seeing the world from perspectives outside of your own, you adapt your behavior, perspective, or approach to life accordingly.

Accommodation is taking the information and acting properly.

While this does emphasize that information should not just be about intake, but also embodiment — this is particularly inclined to the process of memory. While I am certainly a proponent that all learning should lead to actual, practical manifestation, the end goal of the empathic process is that it leads to a suitable response.

As it is with learning.

The perspective you have worked so diligently to inhabit deserves to be added to your lived reality and engrained in your mental construct.

Accommodation is how your perspective actually grows.

Part Three — The Real Value of Empathy and Learning

Beyond knowing how this approach can help you recognize what is happening when you learn, there is a more permanent advantage.

In following these four steps, you guarantee that everything becomes an opportunity to learn.

In fact, empathy and learning are one of the central descriptors of creativity. When you are aware of how much you don’t know and you are paying attention to the infinite possibilities in your midst, you begin to unearth and undisguise components of reality that may have been left untouched in the normal doldrums of living.

Learning becomes a way to connect the clouds together.

Because you are seeing way more than your default, egocentric perspective was attuned to before.

Yet, this is also a guarantee that learning will never end.

When everything is an opportunity to learn, your open and curious mindset embraces the infinite journey of exploring the world.

As you move through this life and through the world, see not only the world, but that the entire world is an opportunity to grow, understand, and see more than you currently do.

May your learning exponentially grow and never cease.