Why Isn't Learning Enjoyable Anymore? - How To Revive Your Curiosity

an interesting problem that I've been thinking for a long long time is how do we regain our joy for learning how exactly do we regain this childish curiosity how exactly do we navigate intelligently navigate through some of the constraints that we have to become truly curious to become truly authentically motivated to learn to become this sort of auto deed acts that has these learning skills that has these foundations for self education because education system you could say that you can learn some useful stuff in there but the methodology or the epistemic foundation that they come from this sort of industrialized bureaucracy this is not at all or partially it's not at all conducive to you when you try to develop a curiosity for learning I've seen people that went into the the elite science school that I'm going to right now I've seen people that before they went into the school they were beaming with sort of this excitement beaming with the possibility to learn and beaming with a sort of infantile energy I'm gonna I'm gonna be learning so much at school and I'm gonna be following my passion I'm gonna really be studying hard and then get grasping with all these hard math and sciences and doing all these nerdy stuff at school and finishing Audia Simon Simon gonna be really really on top of my game but then when they entered the school a couple couple of weeks past couple of months pass a cup of maybe a year passes and you talk to and you talk to that person again hey how are you enjoying school and the response that you get my shock you because the initial energy that they have is completely gone the initial excitement so to speak are completely completely deconstructed demolished at the very least dissipated so we've seen this phenomenon happening people that really want to learn stuff and they think that they can really learn it well at school by through through following some framework they think they can really instill in their mind not be interested in a subject at all they end up getting their passion slaughtered they end up not really enjoying the coursework at all having having been placed into that frame or having been placed into that system so the question that I'm posing right here is that how do we intelligently navigate through the obstacles that we have to regain that sort of curiosity to regain that sort of passion for learning to regain that sort of dominant value to regain that sort of ancient Greek value for learning the resistant the resistance to doxa to think critically and to become truly intelligent individuals not just people that can regurgitate formulas and to do a bunch of physics equations and to do about the bunch of math equations and recite a bunch of poetry without actually knowing how to understand a poetry without actually learning the implications of the physics without actually learning the implications of the mathematics or perhaps appreciating the beauty of mathematics that's the topic that we're going to address today so there's a center of gravity here there's a center of system and the center of homeostasis that we have to talk about before I offer you some constructive solutions school is all about grades okay school is all about grades this is the dominant thing that schooling system is all about numbers statistics performance assessment so you are reduced to a piece of statistic that's just a fact you are reduced on a scale you are reduced to competitive objects and you are objectified and you are in a sense you are in a sense compared with all these other students you are in a sense subjected to this vast sea of comparisons that's the current fact that we were dealing with there's no point fighting it and there's no point criticizing a tour or ranting against or try to demolish it but what we can do is to realize that there is a problem within this frame of education there is someone some sort of a glitch in the matrix this is not exactly how things should work this is not exactly the thing that we want when we talk about education this is not exactly right something feels awfully wrong about this so school is about grades and that's a reality that you have to accept not to resist so given that school is about grades how can we then release this sort of neurotic need for grades release this sort of center of gravity release this sort of knee-jerk reaction to always pursue degrees a common common assumption that students have when they enter high school University is that if you do well in all your classes if you achieve a all the way through if you achieve a really high grade then you're basically set for life so there's basically this tendency for us to base our entire life's asset upon education to base this entire entirety of self entirety of self-identity and self-worth upon distrain towards the rat race upon this train of comparison that's train of competitive the competitive nature of high school students this train of pursuing higher and higher and higher grades this orgy of getting into better and better and better universities that is the dominant discourse that's happening within formal educational systems that is the dominant thing that all students are trying to pursue and that is the thing that is predominantly displacing the joy of learning if you have this big dinosaur in a room displacing all the space that you have to think displacing all of which that you're really trying to become curious about and really trying to investigate well how else could you how else could you become curious how else can you exactly read the books that you want how else can you revive the joy of learning because your mind space have been so crammed up by all these notions of pursuing grades of pursuing higher marks of getting the best getting to the best University you're basing your entire self-worth and your self-identity and your self narrative upon these things that don't matter at the end of course are gonna feel down of course you're not going to be not gonna feel curious of course you don't give a jack about the subjects that you're learning because all your mind is taken up by this dinosaur of a concept of pursuing higher grace whilst at the rest of the mind space you devote to entertainment devote to escapism or devote to some recreational drugs or devote to all these dysfunctional things because it seemed evitable school is too stressful you're getting stressed over something that don't that you don't exactly hair only care about how else could you become motivated and of course you have to use a neurotic motivation of course you have to kick yourself in the ass of course this joy of learning is lost and you have to use escapism behavior to counteract that how do I know it I'm one with a system and within the system and something to stress that that's experience it's it's really real and I really do sympathize with the people that that's are about to enter this entire game because it is a harsh game to play and the dinosaur in the room really is displacing all of the curiosities that we have so that learning no longer turns into an authentic activity and even worse even worse than displacing the joy of curiosity all of the crap that you learn at school they're not exactly that useful schools don't tell tell don't exactly tell you how to manage a great relationship they don't exactly tell you how to self-educate they don't exactly tell you how to maintain a positive relationship they don't exactly tell you how to manage your finances things don't exactly tell you how to master your emotions don't exactly tell you the importance of meditation the importance of accumulating life experience the importance of grit the importance of all these business concepts accounting economics philosophy spiral dynamics systems thinking now some of the dominant concepts within psychology personal development self-actualization all these critical pillars that we need to live a good life aren't taught in school if schools can displace this dinosaur in the room if schools actually teach you useful stuff fine if they're actually conducive to living fine more the more that I study and the more that I play with the concepts the more that I start to realize that most of the stuff that I learn right now I'm not exactly gonna use in the future not exactly and a lot of the things a lot of the critical things how to focus how to develop mental capacity to face catastrophes how to develop in a strong psyche how to develop a really rigid and strong character all these things I couldn't really find in any corners of school I couldn't really find within any peers around me I couldn't really ask anybody about this not even my parents so I have to take on the burden of self education to sort of pull against the gravity to sort of push parts of the dinosaur out of the room to sort of alleviate some of the room so that I can read a little more so that I can be investing some extra time and resources into buying some books reading some books taking notes of some books keeping a good commonplace book all these things they have to be done independently given that the system is not really conducive to that so here's a solution the reason why that what you're losing this joy of learning is not an accident all of us are losing this authentic passion of ours to learn all of us all of us are perhaps losing out on the joy of learning that would never ever get captured again so this is a plea really and this is sort of a call to action if you don't care about joy of learning fine and a end of this conversation but if you do care about joy of learning take the responsibility to educate yourself take the responsibility to read books that you actually want to read write prioritize reading ifs cork is stressing you out I'm not talking about throwing out a score work away we're still in the system we're still talking in this 21st century well you have to take on some personal responsibility so if you want to read a book if you want to pursue your curiosity how about discipline yourself to read 30 minutes every morning of a subject that you care about how about sacrificing some of the videogames so you can go truly pursue some passion that you have like making like photography for example business for example technology for example coding anything that you want sacrifice some of the things that you have to sacrifice in order to really recapture this thing that's wrongly lost how about taking on to personal responsibility of reading the books about the most important concepts that you need to live a good life reading books on relationships on self-help not exactly self-help but all the principles within psychology self-actualization economics or some of the books on philosophy or some of the books on timeless advice some of the stoic philosophy which I which is one of my favorite and some of the things that are that are actually gonna help you down the road some of the timeless principles in some of the timeless principle in business in in wealth in the personal success in emotional mastery how about taking on a responsibility of reading those on your own because your school is not teaching you dad how about taking on the responsibility of keeping a commonplace book so you have a repository of all these stuff that you've learned throughout the years and how about physically developing yourself instead of reading a bunch of books just for the sake of it well take action upon a principles that you've learned from the books take actions upon the stuff that I'd talk about in these videos take action upon the things that aren't really taught in school and take some drastic measures if you have never meditated before maybe attend a seven days meditation retreat or if you're never exercised before maybe go go for a run one morning if you've never done anything before try it out without getting constricted by some higher voice or by the dinosaur in the room and at the end you have to bite the bullet by all costs or despite the costs revive your joy for learning revive the sort of renaissance spirit and revive this polymath spirit all to the Dacus ism be a self-taught genius self learned self taught maintain your curious curiosity throughout the entire your school and career whilst intelligently navigating through that sort of laboriousness within the system and also to view the laboriousness of the system as an act of character building so I'm not talking about throwing out all your schooling but that's not really practical nor is it that conducive to your personal growth navigate through the system and to view the laborious tasks at school ask character building and somehow integrate self education into the mix so you have this entire shebang of curiosity self education character building social relationships reading reading all these really timeless advice from philosophy from self health from psychology somehow integrate all of them together and turn yourself into a modern polymath that's something that I'm really excited to talk more about in the future so this is just a invitation for you to join me as an autodidact invitation for you to become a self-taught genius invitation for you to master yourself invitation for you to capture what's being wrongly lost and this is the quirky inquiry signing off right now

Channel: Robin Waldun

Views: 379,430

Keywords: how to enjoy school, how to enjoy high school, how to enjoy studying, how to enjoy studying for exams, how to make studying fun, how to make studying fun and easy, learning, self education, education, education system, why the schooling system is bad, polymath, da vinci, the quirky inquiry, high school, robin wu

Id: d96A793cmh8

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 26 2019