There was some jacking about today about Post Modernism. Now that sounds extremely pretentious but trust me it is not. I don't know anything about Modernism or Post Modernism or for that matter Post Post Modernism other than the fact that these words exists, and there are complicated theories about it which people who are very intelligent and like to dabble with intelligence as a gentlemanly passtime talk about them in casual conversations over a bottle of wine and sweetly scented candles. I am obviously not one of them. I'd love to be one of them, for the simple reason everybody else wants to be one of them. Who doesn't want to be more intelligent?
The thing about knowledge and learning when it comes to me is that I don't retain anything. My mind is the proverbial sieve that a people talk about. I read, then I think that I know something and then I systematically proceed to forget to retain anything of what I have taken in. I have been trying to go through my college text books for the past couple of months and I believed, as I read them, that I was understanding a lot more than when I haphazardly read some of the material when I was supposed to be cramming for examinations. But I just don't remember. I remember odd things from them. But facts and figures still elude my memory.
Post Modernism and different -isms, I have vague ideas about, and I should probably read more about it since in my line of work, its a sacrilege not to be conversant with different schools of thought and basic Art History. But I'm afraid that I am an abject failure in this and always shall be because of my lack of retention of anything.
I believe I will just stop the pretension of wanting to remember things and just read for the pleasure of the experience of reading, which is: the momentary illusion of believing that I'm learning something. Not remembering should just be looked upon as an added advantage. I can keep going back to the material again and again and be equally excited about reading it as I was the first time I read it. Who knows? Maybe upon the millionth read, the sieve will finally clog up and I might be lucky enough to be left with a massively gross hairball of accumulated knowledge.
The thing about knowledge and learning when it comes to me is that I don't retain anything. My mind is the proverbial sieve that a people talk about. I read, then I think that I know something and then I systematically proceed to forget to retain anything of what I have taken in. I have been trying to go through my college text books for the past couple of months and I believed, as I read them, that I was understanding a lot more than when I haphazardly read some of the material when I was supposed to be cramming for examinations. But I just don't remember. I remember odd things from them. But facts and figures still elude my memory.
Post Modernism and different -isms, I have vague ideas about, and I should probably read more about it since in my line of work, its a sacrilege not to be conversant with different schools of thought and basic Art History. But I'm afraid that I am an abject failure in this and always shall be because of my lack of retention of anything.
I believe I will just stop the pretension of wanting to remember things and just read for the pleasure of the experience of reading, which is: the momentary illusion of believing that I'm learning something. Not remembering should just be looked upon as an added advantage. I can keep going back to the material again and again and be equally excited about reading it as I was the first time I read it. Who knows? Maybe upon the millionth read, the sieve will finally clog up and I might be lucky enough to be left with a massively gross hairball of accumulated knowledge.
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