Die just a bit, grow just a bit

 Die just a bit, grow just a bit

By Bobby Neal Winters

We resist learning.

I wrote that as  my first paragraph because some people say you should begin with an introduction, and I thought I’d give it a try.  I am not sure that it worked, so I will try it again.

We resist learning.

I do have a PhD, but I don’t have a doctorate of education.  This means that, while I’ve had the experience of delving into the Unknown and reducing its frontiers, I don’t know any of the language that describes learning. In spite of being in the field of education for over three decades, I’ve never picked it up. Because...

We resist learning.

Even a blind hen gets a kernel now and then, however.  There are different kinds of learning.  One one level there are skills: Mathematics, computer programming, languages, woodworking, cooking, talking to narcissists.  These are all bankable things. We resist learning these because they are hard.  

But there are other things as well.  There are things that aren’t hard; somebody says them, and it doesn’t take many words; but then they will deny the truth of it.  I am not going to give a specific example here.  If I did, there would be those who would simply deny it.  They would take the other side just to do it.

And some of you have done that very thing just now, which makes my point for me.  Got you!

Have you ever had an argument with someone--perhaps a civil discussion, but one in which there was a disagreement--and you made all of your points; you countered all of theirs; you ended with a QED which any neutral observer would grant that you were correct.  Maybe you even walked off thinking you had won.  And then you heard the same person saying the same things in the same way to other people.

Yes.  He didn’t learn anything...or maybe it was you.

When we change our minds on something we believe to be important, it is a little death.  We give up something of ourselves.

A really smart person told me something once that another really smart but much more famous person said. (Famous, but I can’t remember his name.) Losing an argument is much better than winning one.  If you lose an argument, and someone convinces you that you were wrong, then you have gained more than she has.  She has learned nothing, but you have learned something.  You’ve improved yourself, while she has not. (See, I’ve learned to use gender-inclusive language.)

We improve ourselves at the price of the death of a small part of our former selves.

There are all sorts of psychological/sociological reasons for us humans being so stiff-necked, but a practical reason for our resistance is simple.  We might be right: Every idea not only has to fight to get on the stage, it has to fight to stay there.

I’ve now written almost 500 words on this topic.  There will be those of you who have read this far, but still don’t believe me.  I am okay with that. Fighting the idea is apparently part of the process.

But you’ve made my case. ((Mic drop))

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )