Learning, Literally

I have had a strange kind of "mental block" (not sure what that means exactly) when it comes to anticipation of learning. If it helps to explain, consider this scenario: You have a midterm/a test/a concert/a demonstration of growth in a certain subject, like Math, and it is to be had in about a week. Rather than studying as soon as news of the test hits me, I will wait until the night before the exam and do my best to learn everything then. I'm not sure why I have the urge to wait until the last moment to learn, as what I do when I'm not studying isn't obviously preferable to studying. Video games are kind of fun, in my experience, and so is hanging out with friends, but I am still aware that I can do those things any time and there isn't the threat of a test involved, but I have a terrible sense of prioritization, so I never prepare like I should.

I recently had an experience where I studied more proficiently than any time in recent memory, up to the point where I would guess "5 years" is an accurate number. The class I was having a test in was math 3b, which could be compared to Calculus 2, specifically integration, U-Substitution, and "A clever way of summing things up", according to my math professor. Although like before I waited until the final night before the exam to study, I changed in that I began to study at the mouth of the night, 12AM, than what I had been doing before, which is best summarized by playing video games in order to distract from the bad-tasting anxiety until about 6 AM, wherein I would slam my own capacities by trying to learn that which can be called an impractical amount of material with too-little time left. From my experience, a lot of people, even the majority (depending on which circle of people is surrounding me), can relate to this, and this seemingly inexplicable force which prevents us from learning.

I hope that what I am about to say is learning will help you to calm down in preparation of an exam. Learning, in my experience, in the context of math and what I am guessing to be more than math, too, is literally staring and looking at something which makes no sense to the self at the start, seeing how changing a small part of it affects the entirety, and trying to replicate that, and doing that over and over. When I thought about it in this way, there seemed to be within myself the dissolution of the idea that math was "Difficult" in the sense that difficult related to our capacity to understand, but that math was "Difficult" in the sense that you only needed to dedicate time proportional to your capacity to remember. Once I began to think about what I needed to "Learn" in these terms, the task which lied ahead of me was given context, and I could suddenly see myself conquering the several modules of homework which I needed to do in order to understand "Math 3B", because I just needed to stare at something which made no sense to the current self for a long time 12 times (12 because that is the number of problems per module/homework assignement) and apply that knowledge which I would come to understand to the future homework assignments, which would let me get a good grade on the test.

After I did what I considered to be explain away the anxiety and fear (Which I believe came from lack of knowledge of how long it would take to complete what needed to be done), and I realized that I did not dislike (I thought about what it meant to dislike something for a little while, and maybe what it means to dislike something is "To admit to having a closed mind about it") staring at things I didn't understand for long periods of time, it was much more psychologically easy for me to sit down and "Learn".

Does someone else relate to this experience? Did my experience aid someone else in the commencement of learning? What has been your experience with learning?

 

I've experienced a great challenge in which I've learned a lot about myself and what I'm capable of mentally, physically and emotionally. In fact, I can confidently say that that single challenge shaped who I am and taught me that most other challenges are only challenges in your head, and not in reality. The more shit you go through, the more you get fucked over and over and over again until you want to give up, the thicker your skin grows :)

 

Amen to that, brother. I think it would just be excellent if we could inspire a cultural wave of defiance to challenges and limits. I think everyone would get along better with each other, too, because the more life experience you gain by facing your challenges, the better you'll be able to relate to others, IMO.