Do You Like to Learn?

"You are the same as you will be five years from now, except for two things: the books you read, and the people you meet.” ---In my notes from years ago, I thought that I’d written that down as a Chinese proverb, but a quick internet search ascribes it to someone named Charlie “Tremendous” Jones- whoever that was. Another quick google search tells me he was one of the leaders in the personal and professional development industry.

Regardless of who came up with it, it’s a thought I’ve chewed on since adolescence and one I come back to still.

I like to learn.

I suppose I’ve always liked to learn. If all I had to do was read some books, then for sure, I could read them all. And in some ways, I did and still do.

It came naturally for me- to try and know what came next. To try and figure out what had happened and why. To inquire deeper, know more. I was a writer after all- that’s just how I was born. 

But the problem with writing when you don’t know what’s what, is that you can’t explain how you know what you know, just that you know it, you know? I digress.

When I first learned about the myelin sheath, I was reading a book on encoded memories and where they were coded, how they were coded in the chakras energetically the same way they were coded into your neurons chemically (Eden, 2008). The writer went on to explain that your earliest life memories are imprinted in the root chakra and become lodged there before the brain has developed the myelin sheaths that are necessary to physically code such memories.

It made sense to me. It clicked.

But now what?

After all, did we want to go back that early? Did I want to explore what happened before myelin sheath shut certain traits in the same way it blocked certain things out. Was the myelin sheath kind of like wei qi, the defensive/protective energy (depending on translation- you can’t really translate certain concepts, they have to be discovered) that was responsible for resisting and combatting External Pernicious Influences (Kaptchuk, 2000)—did it matter? Was the myelin sheath supposed to be strengthened, or were we supposed to leave it alone? I don’t know if I ever found an answer to that one, just that it needed to be developed, unfolded or unfurled if you broke it down to its original form and while books could take me lots of places, it was the second part of that statement above that really transformed my life and beyond.

The people part.

The types of people who broke my heart with the stories they told and the way that they shared them. The ones who didn’t fill my cup, and more importantly, the ones who did. The ones who taught me where books came from, unfolded before me in human form. The one’s who reminded me that I was a story too, and that I was worth exploring. 

So, what’s the point of this self-life? Learn yourself? Learn others? Read books? Fly kites? Play a guitar; go for a hike!

I don’t have the answer to that anymore than anyone ever has, but if you love what you learn, maybe one day you’ll understand.