Learning: The Wherewithal to Change

I was just re-reading a little Csikszentmihalyi (say that ten times fast) and some of his writings on creativity.

“Television is a fantastic tool for increasing the range of what we can experience, but it can make us addicted to redundant information that appeals to the lowest common denominator of human interests.”

And it doesn’t end there: you could substitute so many other ‘things’ in place of the word television. What about ‘social networking,’ or something even more specific, like ‘Facebook?’

It doesn’t matter really, because that’s really not the point. The point is that all new innovations can have a dark side. That’s not to dismiss them as completely ‘bad’ or negative, but the ‘lowest common denominator’ is closer then you might realize. Heck, I love to stop thinking, and turn on the TV, or Netflix, or… well, you get the picture. We ALL need a dark side. hehehe…

Sometimes it seems like the very challenges we set out to solve 5-10 years ago only introduce new ones today. Kinda like overpopulation—perhaps at least partially brought about by medical advances and longer life spans.

Hence the reason that we need two things: awareness and creativity.

Awareness to see what’s happening around us…

And creativity to have the wherewithal to (at least try) to change it.

As someone that has spent a great deal of my life learning, and developing learning for others, I am realizing more and more everyday, how learning is a constant, looping, systemic process. Looping, because it involves action-reflection and passion-objective types of responses, systemic because it’s dynamically responding to every piece or variable of the puzzle…

It’s more complex than a straight line.

Cycles repeat, and loops boggle our brains, but refusal to allow our brains to go numb is perhaps the key to learning. Being pliable and flexible to allow for change as we dynamically respond to the fluctuations of life—now that’s exciting.

I love TV, the movies, Facebook, the web, my iPhone, my Windows Phone, and so on… But I sometimes catch myself growing a bit numb from the repetition of certain kinds of information—it’s just not healthy.

Whether it’s my brain, or exercise and my body, or numerous other examples I could mention, this brings me back to previous discussions on the need to ‘mix it up.’

Constantly being able to shift between action and reflection is a healthy and great example of ‘mixing it up.’ Maybe I’ll talk about it next time, but I’ll conclude this thought by saying life will always be about opposites, extremes, fluctuations, and the ability to keep adjusting to new situations.

Try not to let any single thing get you to used to the ‘lowest common denominator.’

What are your most luring situations or patterns in your typical day?