Seeing the world anew:

Learning to unlearn

by Ranga Kamaladasa

The above is just a thought. A construct in someone's mind. Similarly or dissimilarly we all have thoughts and beliefs. Seeing the world according to different perspectives, be it religious, political, cultural or individual, is quite natural. Right Vs Wrong, Good Vs Bad, likes and dislikes, we define the world we live in and the people in it - not the other way around.

Some call it prejudice, some call it common sense but one interesting thing is, this common sense or prejudice is something that we learn. We don't inherit it and it's not biological. Either by a past experience, or maybe in the form of advice, or even by reading books, browsing the Internet, and watching films.

For most people having a pre-judgment gives a feeling of security. Deepal who is in his early fifties describe it as "I believe I have a very good judgment of people. When I was a child I read all kinds of books. And I've come up across a whole heap of characters. And that has helped me a lot to understand real people."

Mrs. Dias who's in her late 40's says a similar story. "I have watched a lot of teledrama's in the TV. And from the experience I've gained I can sense what people are thinking."

While Deepal claims he can "understand" people, and while Mrs. Dias confidently says she can sense what people are thinking, the appropriate question would be - are they always right? Deepal thinks so.

"Well, there are the occasional rare cases you can't put someone inside a single frame," says Deepal. "But most of the time, I'm right." Judging a character can be very useful for someone like a physiotherapist. In fact psychoanalysis in some cases is done by relating real world situations into fairy tale characters.

Knights in shining armor, Damsels in Distress, Big Bad Wolfs and Ugly Old Witches are put into context when analyzing specific incidents. In his best selling book "What do you say after you say hello?" Dr Eric Berne demonstrates how each life script gets written, how it works and, more important, how anyone can improvise or change his script to make a happy ending...

But "script reading" or pre-judging a person, especially someone who's close to you, can be very dangerous, as in the following cases. Close friends and family find that they want to be empathized rather than understood. They don't want to be judged or taken for granted. And a little sympathy can go disastrously wrong.

"I hate my dad," says Akash (14). "He always thinks that I'm trying to get into trouble. I'm not. Every day I try to be better. But he doesn't understand."

Disadvantages

One of the disadvantages of clinging on to what you've learnt is not seeing the subtle changes. Common Sense or the pre-judgments we have can be harmful because we tend to see the world as it was in the past, leaving no opportunity or space for change. Differences which are right in front of our eyes are shunned away by us because it's easier to go with what we know, rather than taking into consideration a new idea.

"My husband always yells at me," complains Dinusha who's been married for a little more than three years. "If he wants to get something done he just yells. It's becoming a habit."

Dinusha's complaint is synonymous with most couples who are going through a rough phase. Once the initial chemistry is lost it takes an extra effort to see new things.

And in truth people do fail to see the real beauty of small things. Paying only little attention to the moment and indulging in worrying about the future or feeling guilty or ashamed of what has happened in the past becomes a habit as Dinusha says. And like Akash's father neglecting to empathize with loved ones contribute to conversations ending up being nothing but interesting monologues.

Weiner Heisenberg (the physicist who theorized the Uncertainty Principle) once said "We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning....."

And in truth people can breakaway from this usual pattern of thought just by asking a different set of questions. But to answer those different set of questions it's essential to unlearn the already predominant beliefs. How does one learn to unlearn the things that has been already learnt?

In most cases unlearning can be close to impossible. For example if you know how to swim it's impossible to unlearn swimming. But what you can do is choose not to swim. Similarly you can choose not to be governed by a pattern of thought, even after thinking it.

"I used to hate spiders," says Dinusha. "But now whenever I see a spider, I remind myself that I can do more harm to it that it can do to me."

But in other cases unlearning can take a very long time. Conditioning, exposure to new ideas, and time itself can play a crucial role in the unlearning process. "I used to be a very ardent socialist." Says Indu. "When I was in University I was very active in politics. But not anymore.

Maybe because of the downfall of the Soviet Union, and maybe because the socialist parties in our country were not sensitive to the ethnic crisis, and maybe because of my MBA in the later stages of my life- I guess all these things changed my viewpoint drastically." Putting the debate over socialism and capitalism aside, (The point is to confront these deep-rooted beliefs, not to say one is superior to the other.) notice the way how Indu's paradigm has shifted. For him the change was gradual and it took nearly half of his life.

"When I was a child I always thought that adults were perfect," says Yoshitha, a mother of three. "But as I grew up I saw the flaws in them and I even got to realize why they act the way they do."

"I used to think that boys were always out and looking for a chance to take advantage of us." says Dilini. "I guess that was because I went to an all-girls school and my parents were always telling me to be careful. But now I realize that boys are just like us, maybe even more scared."

Exposure to new territories

Unlearning as is seen in Indu's, Yoshitha's and Dilini's cases has been accompanied by exposure to new territories. But unlearning can also occur when people challenge existing ideas. History has a lot of examples.

The concept of Communism was brought up by challenging the bureaucratic dictatorship of the corrupt kings and ruling classes. The Buddha's legacy had a strong hold because it challenged the strong Brahmin ruled cast system of ancient India. Similarly a lot of breakthroughs in science occurred as a result of an unlearning process and challenging the current frame of reference.

For example Einstein in proclaiming the theory of relativity unlearnt Newton's theory of gravity as whole. "It is harder to crack a prejudice than an atom." Einstein once said. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

Max Planck the man behind Quantum Theory had to challenge all the assumptions made previously by scientists on matter and energy as two different entities. One of Max Plank's famous quotations illustriously explains his unlearning process; "Scientific discovery and scientific knowledge have been achieved only by those who have gone in pursuit of it without any practical purpose whatsoever in view".

In challenging the obvious or as Planks says disregarding 'practical purposes' scientists are open to observations that were taken for granted.

More than one third of our lives, we spend learning to live. The next third of our lives are spent on trying to figure out what we learnt. Then the last third we justify the way we live according to the things we learned. Quite an enchanting fairly tale to live in, if you think about it.

It's true that we can learn till the day we die. Yet most of us are saturated and contented with our own beliefs that we are rendered insensitive to the ever changing world around us. So let go of your thoughts, at least for a moment and try to see the world anew.