Live Weekly Update: Learning is Love in Action

Since 2020, one of my leading questions has been, “What does learning feel like?” How do you know when you’re learning? When we pursue learning as a project of our own will and intention, I think it actually shares a lot of similarities with loving, especially if you, like me, define love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of one’s own or another’s healing, transformation, and liberation. What if we approached learning with such a definition? This isn’t learning for the sake of learning, but learning with a specific purpose. Ultimately, like love, and most others endeavors worth our effort, learning is a project of becoming. Even self-overcoming. We become something different along the way. Ideally, we become more of who we are and aspire to be. When we learn precisely because of the change it entails and inspires, learning is a powerful path for our ‘how.’ Learning. Loving. Learning. Beneath the will to learn is always a want to know. A desire, a longing, a yearning to move closer… To become more intimate. Ask the lover what they have learned about their beloved and the how is revealed — attention to detail, respect for what is, adoration met with even more surprise. With real love, there is a willingness and a want to embrace the truth. Love accepts. Makes room for truth. Cherishes it, even. Ultimately, love and learning both require openness, humility, and the recognition that something valuable dwells beyond the familiar interior of your own world. Whatever exceeds you contains dimensions that can be known, at least to some greater degree, when approached with an unassuming well of good will in good faith. To love well is almost inherently a project that entails learning along the way. And learning can look a lot like love in action. We extend ourselves, on purpose. Learning takes commitment, practice, discipline. To study requires attention, focus, repetitious noticings that form into stronger connections. When we really learn something, it refines the edges of meaning and offers new shape to what we feel and perceive. Learning is the process from which a depth of understanding emerges. In this livestream, I spoke about reading, writing, thinking, speaking, and listening as crucial skills we must develop. To do all of the above more clearly and critically should be a collective priority. And what if we approached our priorities — including the way we write, even the way we read, even the way we think — with the same degree of deliberate care, slow patience, and gentle presence that love often requires. What if we were tender, instead of consuming? What if we were generous, instead of demanding? What if we understood we have to make a sincere effort and sometimes really work for it, instead of assuming we inherently deserve to receive what is vital and precious? What if we assumed it is our responsibility to assure our own fortitude and readiness, rather than approaching wisdom, or a woman, with reckless arrogance? We could forge a closer relationship with a text by taking our time to move through the words. Soak in a pause. Let it breathe. No rush necessary. We could become more intimate with an idea. Curiosity ignites passion and excitement; it can even open onto an overwhelming grandeur beyond immediate comprehension. We could be struck with so much awe our egos get small. We could listen to our words, and be patient when another speaks. Maybe we’d be met with echoes or mirrors that inspire us to share more graciously, to be more artful in our expression, to be as cautious in how we interpret as we are creative with our offerings. The truth of experience and the river of feeling, which we will to share but never fully capture, will always run too deep. Get full access to Want to Know at coriwong.substack.com/subscribe