The Thing About Learning
Photo by Yaopey Yong on Unsplash
Bruce Lee’s philosophy when it came to learning was that there was no single best way to learn.
He didn’t prescribe to the idea of fixed patterns and approaches to education, rather he believed that real education is unique to the individual. It comes from absorbing what’s helpful (in your own judgement) rejecting what’s not and then defining your own ‘truth’, your own path forward.
In fact, he conceived of the martial art, Jeet Kune Do, not as another style per se, but a process:
I hope to free my followers from clinging to styles, patterns, or molds. Remember that Jeet Kune Do is merely a name used, a mirror in which to see "ourselves". . . Jeet Kune Do is not an organized institution that one can be a member of...Every movement in Jeet Kune Do is being so of itself. There is nothing artificial about it...Jeet Kune Do is simply the direct expression of one's feelings with the minimum of movements and energy. The closer to the true way of Kung Fu, the less wastage of expression there is. Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it. He is still hung up on his self-closing resistance, in this case anchored down to reactionary pattern, and naturally is still bound by another modified pattern and can move within its limits. He has not digested the simple fact that truth exists outside all molds; pattern and awareness is never exclusive. Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back. - Bruce Lee in Black Belt Magazine, September 1971
There’s one line in there that really resonates with me:
Finally, a Jeet Kune Do man who says Jeet Kune Do is exclusively Jeet Kune Do is simply not with it.
This tendency to think in terms of absolutes, in defined steps, in stark prescriptions, limits us from receiving a true education, from becoming who we need to be, who we really are. When we believe the system is what delivers the truth, we become trapped and cease to be ourselves. When, instead, the skepticism, the willingness to question, the readiness to form and fashion, sift and discard, in order to get to our truth, is what matters.
And this, in many senses, is where traditional schooling fails us. It locks us into rote memorization and defined/set approaches of the “right” way. We’re conditioned to think that we can’t deviate outside of these accepted “proven” approaches, and, worse, we’re taught to judge those who do, including (especially) ourselves. This (mis)education stays with so many of us all our lives.
Surely the essence of learning is that there are no absolutes, that the path to our truth is very personal. That we don’t necessarily need to proceed sequentially through a process. That we can and should use our judgement to determine what makes sense given our situation and our context. This applies to both what we learn and how we get there.
The point is that we need to free ourselves from the shackles of our own miseducation. Otherwise, we’re simply looking elsewhere for the answers.
When, instead, the answers aren’t elsewhere. They’re within us.
