On Navigation, Learning, and Coming Into Focus

When I first moved to Texas, the roads were a blur and the area had no meaning. It wasn't like my former home in Massachusetts, where I knew the area like the back of my hand.

During those first couple of months I had to heavily rely on the GSP to get to where I needed to go. But the more I drove around Lubbock, the greater feel I was getting for the lay of the land.

It gradually dawned on me that my increasing familiarity with the area was like a picture that was slowly coming into focus piece by tiny piece.

Yes, that was how it felt. Lubbock was this huge picture that was blurred and out of focus. During my first weeks there, only one tiny corner was in sharp focus, and that was the apartment complex where I lived.

But gradually the edges of that in-focus area started moving outward like a light beam widening to illumine a larger area.

First this started with using the GSP to guide me to the various doctors I had to take my husband to and to the stores I shopped at.

Bit by bit more of the image was getting into sharper focus. And as more was getting into focus, I was able to start intuiting the rest of the picture.

It was as though the lay of the land could be compared to Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." When I first moved to Lubbock, the only thing that was in sharp focus was square-inch section of a loaf of bread on the table.

At that point, I did not know that I was looking at a loaf of bread. But as I became more familiar with the area, more of the picture got into focus, and I realized that I was looking at a loaf of bread.

After awhile, when I was learning the back roads of the area, I was able to better intuit what I was looking at. In addition to seeing the loaf of bread, I could now see plates and hands on the table. At that point, while I was still not able to see the whole picture, I was getting pretty certain of what I was looking at.

And I found the idea of navigation as being a picture that gradually came into focus a rather exciting concept.

It only seemed natural that this same concept could also be applied to learning.

When we set out to learn something new, whether a language, a skill, or a new subject matter, it's like facing another out-of-focus picture.

We are somehow attracted to this out-of-focus picture. Maybe we like the colors, the sense of light and shadow, or the symmetry. But at that point we still have no idea what we are looking at. All we have is an inkling.

But as we start deepening our knowledge, more details come into sharper focus. Details and textures start popping out. When we gain mastery over our subject, the picture is complete. But our comprehension of the picture is still on a superficial level.

The learning does not stop just because we can see the whole image. There's further exploration to do and still more new discoveries to be made.

Sunlight glinting on a picture from a different angle may reveal colors and textures that we may have not noticed before.

The artist may have incorporated symbols in his/her painting that may reveal hidden messages when studied more closely.

Ancient frescoes may glow brighter with more vibrant colors after the accumulated soot from centuries of illumination by candle light had been carefully removed.

Specialized instruments may reveal a totally different image under the layers of paint that are visible to us.

The variations and permutations are endless; the potential for new discoveries are limitless. And the process of deepening our knowledge, as well as our appreciation can take a life time.

This is what may be for a person who is a visual learner/processor such as myself. But what sort of process takes place for a person who is an auditory learner? That I find a bit more challenging to comprehend.

Unlike a picture, which can be absorbed in its entirety in a glance, sound has the added dimension of time and duration. Sound is linear. One has to patiently wait for all the information to be delivered, and then one has to remember all that information.

Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" takes me through several auditory landscapes, and each landscape is experienced in the present. I need to sit and listen for several minutes before I have traveled through the entire auditory "painting." Very often while in the midst experiencing one particular landscape I have totally forgotten the landscape that preceded it. And if I have never heard a particular piece before, I cannot intuit what landscape will follow next.

Thus, as a visual processor, the concept of auditory learning appears too unwieldy and inefficient in its linearity. But I suppose that an auditory processor would be similarly challenged when contemplating the visual learning process.

Visual and auditory learning processes are just 2 of the most familiar ways of learning. But surely they aren't the only ways. After all, we are sensory creatures who have been gifted with multiple senses - more than just the 5 we're commonly familiar with - with which to experience the world around us.

Can you imagine the depth of knowledge and appreciation we would gain if we used all of our senses when learning and processing information?

Will the next stage of evolution of our species produce humans who are holographic learners/processors? And what will it feel like to use our brains in such a manner?