THE SURGE

The surge of learning is a phenomenon.  I wish it was a learning curve, but for me, it doesn’t seem to work that way.  It is not a curve that travels in only one direction.  It is a surge… that comes and goes.  It seems to advance and then recedes.  The hope is that it ultimately advances more than it recedes, but it is not one directional.  “Two steps forward, one step backwards”, comes to mind.

However, it is not that simple.  It is unseen tidal surges.  One moment unfelt and undetectable.  The next moment frightening, crashing, breaking waves. It is dangerous rip currents.  It is even the doldrums, when the prevailing winds have disappeared, trapping a student for days, even weeks, seemingly stranded… going nowhere.  It is all of these, and more.  It is a phenomenon.

Tonight learning was a pleasure.  It was work that wasn’t work.  It was fun.  It was frustrating.  It was building, growing larger.  It was a magical mystery.  The ability to learn is linked to a willingness to admit that one needs to learn… more than that; it is that one wants to learn.  Still greater, all of this is eclipsed by the knowing that one is supposed to learn.  We are created to learn.  When I stop learning, I stop living; and living is a phenomenon.

Many adventures in life are momentary.  We must capture the moments.  If we want not to miss living, we must live in the moment.  This is not to say that we do not look where we are going.  But we feel the moment.   It is the moments that we truly experience.   There is a truth that I have learned in many of my life pursuits; it is vitally important that we look where we are going.  However, we must sense the moment.  When I am slalom skiing, my legs feel the water beneath me, but my eyes are always looking beyond the wake.  I am coming to understand that this is true of all learning.  We need to see the distant goal, but we must feel the moment.  And… when we get this right… is it awesome.  It is remarkable living.

Dancing, for me, really brings this into perspective.  I don’t have enough lifetime remaining to learn all the dances I want to learn.  Let me restate that: I don’t have enough lifetime remaining to learn all the dances I want to dance well.  But I can experience the moment of a specific dance.  And then when the wave of learning carries me along, I comprehend the connection.  New steps no longer seem so strange and foreign.  Dances are not a collection of separate pieces.   Steps become sequences, which in turn relate to other sequences, which relate to other dances.  Learning becomes more intuitive… more spontaneous.  The “I get it” moments come more frequently.