Poem, “Burden” …rant about learning and emotion
Side quest #1.
Wrote this the other night under the boughs of Most Favored Tree.
It doesn’t work, and yet I can’t change it to anything else. I guess if you need it, it’s for you.
“LEAVE IT.”–Okay okay, subconscious, I left it!
I didn’t use to write like this, back in the day. Oh well.
…
Burden.
You’re not a burden. All that was a lie.
You are no weight in the dark.
Beside me sometimes, sometimes leading,
A ghost, a hope, a hand, a heart. I wail:
I can’t, I won’t, I don’t have the strength.
There is no way forward. I fail.
You’re not a burden, and never was I.
Across the bow of my back,
such worthless sins, such guilt misleading,
You start, you stop, you run, you drop. Here’s you:
I will, I must, I can’t quit, I’m not done:
There is no resolution. I’m through.
You’re not a burden. So don’t even try.
I’ve heard this bullshit before.
Go stand in the corner! Go silence yourself!
To bed without supper! Go to your room!
I hear, I see, I sing this tune sweetly:
All crickets, all frogs, all glimmering moon.
…
Side quest #2.
Rant about learning to follow.
A couple of conversations yesterday and today and trying to watch an unexpectedly challenging video this morning makes me realize I have a basic assumption about learning now that a) I didn’t realize I had quite in this form, and b) most people probably don’t share.
If you want to learn something thoroughly and deeply, if you want to learn it so you can rely on it, you have to feel it.
Not just know the facts. Not just put the facts into practice. Learning by doing will NOT get you where you need to go on its own. Ya gotta feel it.
Memories seem to form around emotions, not logic. We have ten thousand memory techniques to help us remember facts, but none to help us remember feelings. We struggle to find ways to forget, or at least to release, feelings.
You: Feelings are nebulous. Is something a feeling or not? Do you have to love a topic in order to study it deeply? What if you feel like you don’t have feelings? Technically…
You: Actually, I’m only arguing because I don’t WANT you to be right because it means I might have to think about this and change what I’m doing, and that’s upsetting.
When you’re trying to learn something and catch yourself telling yourself it’s stupid, THAT’S A FEELING. When you focus on someone’s grammar instead of what they’re saying, THAT’S A FEELING. When someone is trying to tell you something and you’re like, “But I know that already,” THAT’S A FEELING. When you’re trying to do something and you find yourself suddenly doing something else, when you put things off until the last minute, when you blank out and go, “What was I doing just now? Eh,” when you go, “I’m too busy to do x,” when you go, “I can’t do x because reasons,” guess what? THOSE ARE FEELINGS.
You: But it’s more complicated than that.
Me: It’s not. I promise you. You’re busy thinking of exceptions that don’t actually apply to you, that you can work around if you let yourself. You’re scared and defensive, and those are feelings.
Shutting those feelings down is what most people do. They push forward, or they avoid the thing entirely.
But if you want to learn deeply, you can just acknowledge the fear, catch it up in your arms so it can’t get away from you, give it hugs and kisses, and praise it for being so very, very brave.
It’ll get away from you again, and you’ll catch it again, over and over again until it’s a kind of game.
When I’m typing out these quotes from the writing classes, I’m not just amused, but I’m stepping back from the class for a moment so I can feel without getting overwhelmed.
I have ADHD and I learn well. I know from distraction.
Feel the feelings, or at least give yourself time to subconsciously process them. Feelings aren’t extraneous to learning; they ARE learning.
Treat yourself like a *good* parent with a kid who doesn’t want to try the new food on their plate.
I know. It’s scary. Focus on whatever petty-ass thing you normally focus on whenever you feel challenged. Focus on your FOMO, indulge in a fantasy about how proud you’ll feel because you can defeat the yucky new food in front of you. Eat for spite. Think about how satisfying it will be, to be able to eat this gross stuff in front of your friends and freak them out. Whine. Annoy people. Be childish! WIGGLE.
You can do this.
…
Stick. Because it looks like it’s floating.
Midjourney’s idea of all crickets, all frogs, all glimmering moon.