Though I hate saying things like "when I was younger" or "back in the day" since doing so makes me feel old, I can't help feeling that in a situation such as this that such a qualifier would apply. At twenty-five years of age, I have been a student for all of my concious life so far. Thinking back, I can't think of a time when I wasn't learning. As a child, I learned to crawl, walk, talk, read and write--all the things necessary to function in the world at large. As I grew older, I added on to that list of skills as necessary: arithmetic, grammar, science, history, geometry, chemistry, biology, Latin, calculus, physics, so on and so on, and some where in the midst of that journey, I learned to learn.
I don't remember the particular instance in which I acquired that skill. I assume now that it was one of those sink-or-swim moments where I came up against the crisis of confronting some wholly unfamiliar task and had no realistic choice but to adapt. Or perhaps, upon thinking about it now, it might have been a gradual process--a period of trial and error during which something either worked or didn't and, as I approached similar problems multiple times, my list of options grew gradually shorter until, in the end I would default to one or two particular actions.
Whatever the method, the result is clear: I learned to learn and have never really stopped since. But now, I find myself confronted with a problem: though I am still learning (since there is no realistic option that simply lets me stop), I no longer feel driven to do so.
Once upon a time, as the saying goes, I learned because I had to. Following that, I learned because I wanted to, and now that I am on the cusp of finishing graduate school, I find myself still learning, but only with an aspect of boredom and indifference that leaves me unsatisfied inside.
Simply put, I don't care what I'm learning anymore.
Over the years, I have come to realize that this has little to do with the material I am studying. Before I entered graduate school, I would learn anything presented to me, not particularly out of interest in the material itself but rather out of the wish to know. I used to want to better myself, to expand my mind, reach to all spheres of knowledge not for the sake of mastering any particular one but just to be able to learn something about the topic whether or not the topic was "easy" for me.
Now, however, I find myself having lost that love or learning for learning's sake.
There are so many reasons I can think of as to why this loss occurred (lack of time, general frustration, mental exhaustion). Though one of the aims of my writing now is to discover what led to this new onset apathy, it is not the focus. If anything, the discovery of the cause will occur in retrospect once I have achieved my true goal rather than requiring me to actively seek it out. The true goal of this exercise is for me to regain that love of learning that I have lost and document the journey I will take to do so.
I've heard the saying so many times: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (or something along those lines).
This is my first of many steps.
Next Step: The Method to the Madness--How I Hope this Project Will Work
