This is going to be a wild article because somewhere down the line I am going to reason that trauma is actually a learning process.
What is learning but repetition of the same thing until it is embedded properly in your head?
We see spaced repetition as a learning technique where you keep exposing yourself to the same material after a period of time to better embed it in your head.
We see active recall as another technique where you try to remember what you had learned and then try to fill the gaps.
In both of them, deliberately or unconsciously we are creating an instance in our head of something.
And having multiple such instances over a period of time etches it into our memory, our actions, and behavior.
So if you want to learn something, just know that it’s going to be a time commitment. After a set of times passes, you are supposed to expose yourself to the material again and again.
Read today, read two days later, read again two days after that, and read again two days after that. You will be much better at it than you are today. Those are the simple mechanics of learning.
So, learning is not going to be tough. It’s going to be a game of commitment that says, “Hey, I am serious about this thing. So I’m going to expose myself to it over and over and over.”
A learned man is also a committed man who kept visiting the same shrine again and again and again.
And I bet most people who are not happy with their learning ability have some commitment issues, and nothing wrong with their brain; they are just not visiting the shrine enough times.
And then I found a parallel with trauma or overthinking.
Both of them lead to the creation of instances in our head of something again and again.
And those instances shape our behavior, feelings, and actions. They are making us learn something.
Don’t be visible again. Don’t get attention again. Don’t speak again. Don’t be perceived again. Don’t be bold again. The kind of experiences that our mind is trying to teach us when it keeps repeating those events.
It will keep repeating your defeated moments, your moments where you were scared, or moments that didn’t go that well.
It’s like machine learning, but you are able to observe the process, and there is no easy way to opt out.
Slick brain is training itself, and you are witnessing the process.
You see sun rising and sun setting. The repetition teaches you that “hey! Sun rises and sets.” Same way the repetition via thoughts is going to teach you something, be it Spanish verbs or some twisted lesson from a humiliating moment.
Your brain observing “spoke up, got hurt” five hundred times in your thoughts is processing it with the same cool objectivity as the sunrise.
I think repetition can help you unlearn things. If you keep remembering things that when stuff went right, you can teach yourself that “Hey, you are ok even if you are visible.”
Basically, doesn’t matter if the repetition was actual or it was just repeated in thoughts. Repetition is going to teach you. So choose your repetitions wisely. They are going to dictate your life.
And thus, By corollary, if you dictate your repetitions, you are going to dictate your life.
Some repetitions might choose you instead of you choosing them (intrusive thoughts or other things like that). But then it becomes imperative that you become aware of them and stop the interruption reduces its potency. Interrupt it as much as you can so that you don’t learn it. You don’t let that repetition be successful. Kill its potencies so that it does not truly become an repetition.
And I think this is where spillover from memories can also affect you.
Our brain labels something when something has a huge, vast boundary, but you need to trigger it with a single word. When you think of someone as a person who can command a room, is good at talking, makes good points, and persuades others, then your brain comes up with the label of charming. And when you are thinking about someone else, and the word “charming” comes up again, that labels those properties to this new person also.
So you have to be wary of using labels in your thoughts. Those labels might transfer their properties into your current thoughts and create wrong learnings.
They can even severely interrupt your imagination and thoughts also. When you’re looking at the sky and label it blue, you’re not able to appreciate the whole extent of it. The clouds in it, the birds in it, the differences in its atmospheric pressure levels, the turbulence among the pockets of air in it, the gradient of colors from horizon to zenith. Those things can be huge, but labels can strain your understanding of it.
The word “bad” has huge implications. It is derived from abstractions of a lot of negative and unfavorable things, and when you say, “My day was bad,” on a regular basis, you are doing yourself a huge injustice because you have a day every day.
I recently saw a reel where the guy was saying, “Tell me what you’re seeing behind me without using any words that deprived me of any labels.” I was actually way more immersed in that scene.
Be wary of your own thoughts, your own repetitions, and your own labels. They will help you be more mindful and have a way more fruitful life.
To live more of your life in this infinite world, it would be helpful to not use labels bogged down by your own memories and labels. That way you will observe more, learn more. Because labels are a shortcut to what you already know and thought of, while what you have in front of you can lend you a lot more than what you know. When you see someone and immediately think “intimidating,” you’ve stopped seeing them. You’re seeing your category, your past experiences with people you labeled the same way, your accumulated associations. All the while, that person in front of you can be something totally different. And the world is always offering more than your labels can capture. Every moment has texture, variation, specificity that doesn’t fit neatly into “good” or “bad” or “stressful” or “boring.”
When you label someone “intimidating” and move on, you’re essentially telling yourself: “I’ve seen this before, I know what this is, no need to look closer.” But you haven’t seen this before. You’ve never met this person in this moment. They might be nervous, or kind, or going through something you can’t imagine. But the label won’t let you find out.
Thus, in that moment, you have stopped learning. You are repeating the same repetition, so whatever was learned before is actually getting crystallized instead of you learning something new. While crystallization might be good for some things, it’s not for whole lot. So you should keep using repetitions and labels for things you want to learn that are technical, that are rooted in truth and objectivity. But be smart about when you should let go of your memories and labels. Overreliance on your labels and memories and what you have already learned can actually teach you to not learn and only constantly retrieve because that’s what is being repeated.
The present is truly infinite, while your labels are awfully finite. To move beyond your own limitations, move beyond your own labels and memories. And experience the now as it is.