Learning by Reading vs. Learning by Listening

Since my childhood I have always loved learning, especially by reading books. I chose what to read by following my intellectual curiosity, which in retrospect looks like a luxury. Even after I became a professional linguist, I continued to follow this same habit.

But this habit started to change gradually yet surely. I did continue learning by reading books in various areas of linguistics, but I began to read more and more of what I had to read in order to write academic papers rather than what interested me, which became less and less like a luxury and more and more like an obligation.

This habit came to an abrupt end as a result of my spiritual awakening, triggered by a traumatic experience I had about eight years ago. I suddenly lost my interest in intellectual knowledge, including linguistics, and my interest shifted completely to life wisdom.

I can think of at least two main reasons for this radical shift, which many of my former colleagues seemed to frown upon. The first is my realization that intellectual knowledge without life wisdom can be more problematic in certain ways than the lack of both intellectual knowledge and life wisdom. Just imagine a researcher of love who has read and published extensively on love without ever experiencing it!

The second is my observation that academia might not be the best place for nurturing life wisdom, at least in the area of linguistics in the specific environment where I worked. Of course, I did meet some linguists with life wisdom, but I don't think they acquired it within academia.

When I started to learn life wisdom not only from my own life experiences, including this traumatic one, but also through books, another important shift occurred. I found it increasingly difficult to read them and began listening to them using text-to-speech software, in addition to listening to lectures.

It took me some time to realize that reading and listening have close affinities with (cognitive) intelligence and spirituality, respectively, at least as far as I am concerned. I was also able to resume my old habit of following my intuition in choosing books.

Now I'm also reminded of my preference for listening over reading when learning not only spirituality and life wisdom but also languages. In fact, this is more than a mere preference. I have to hear the sounds of a new language when I start learning it.

Even after the initial stage I learn more by listening than by reading. This also seems to explain why I have always found it very difficult to learn ancient languages, as I can't hear their sounds used by living people. Classical Hebrew is an exception as it has never ceased to be recited in various traditional Jewish communities.

I still continue to read books - and a lot, in absolute terms. But unlike before, I now consciously choose when to read rather than listen, as I'm aware of when I can maximize my learning davka by reading, even when the subject is spirituality and life wisdom.

In short, this "complementary distribution" of reading and listening as two modalities of learning from books is not "Torah from Sinai". I try to remain flexible, having been liberated from the "yoke" of writing academic papers.

Now the lost "luxury" of spending time with books has not only been restored but also augmented in that my curiosity is no longer only intellectual but also spiritual. And whichever modality I choose intuitively, one important thing remains the same - my love of learning!

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Neuroplasticity of Giving

About a year ago I started taking close-up photos of flowers and leaves I see in nature in the place where I have been living since the beginning of October 2023. I was inspired by my private teacher of Russian, who shared a few close-up photos of local flowers with me around that time.

Initially I only intended to share these photos with my close friends in Jerusalem. But some of them, and the microcosm they revealed, were so amazing that I couldn't help showing them to local people I bumped into on the street.

These flowers and leaves must be very familiar to them, but many of them were also amazed to see them in these close-up photos of mine. Some might even have realized, though probably unconsciously, that they had been looking at these flowers and leaves their entire lives without ever truly seeing them.

In retrospect, this almost daily habit of showing these photos to local people seems to have led to another daily habit of giving three more small things - spontaneous jokes, genuine compliments, and/or my favorite candy - to them spontaneously. Yes, I plan spontaneity in advance. ;-)

I didn't plan any of this, but strangely and quite surprisingly, I now feel that the more I gave, the more I unconsciously felt like giving. What began as a simple desire to share uncontainable joy with others has turned into what feels like a more natural flow of energy with less and less hindrance.

You may wonder what kind of energy I have in mind here. Actually, I'm asking myself the same question now. ;-) I would say that it is the energy of presence, which is the common denominator of these four small things I share with others face to face.

Life before and after Discovering Mission of This Life of Mine

I discovered the mission of this life of mine about six years ago through Jewish life coaching I received in Jerusalem, when I felt totally lost in life. Two years later, I learned that the day on which we discover our mission, or why we were born, is the second most important day in life.

One way to measure the importance of any life event is by how it affects our subsequent life. This discovery has indeed affected my life so deeply that I can even call the part before it "prehistory".

In retrospect, I was asleep until this life-changing experience. Although I did think quite seriously from time to time about how to live my life, I still followed, rather unconsciously, what I had been conditioned to believe.

One such belief in my professional life was the so-called "success" in life. After discovering the mission of this life of mine, I immediately realized that my academic job, even with tenure, was not even a means to an end. Worse still, it distracted me from my mission.

It didn't take me long after this discovery and the resulting realization to decide to quit my academic job. Naturally, I was afraid for my financial future. But I was even more afraid of wasting my precious time doing something that didn't feel aligned with my mission.

In a deeper sense, however, I did not waste my time there, as I learned a number of important lessons. The most important one is probably that academia is not for me, which I could not have learned without spending enough time there. ;-) I was also able to develop my patience. ;-)

Not only have I been able to survive financially since I made this decision through a series of unexpected events, but I also finally found a solution for my financial stability in a most unexpected way a few months ago.

Now I seem to be able to focus fully on my mission without worrying about my financial survival. In the meantime, I have also found a new way of fulfilling my mission in an even more meaningful way, one that can affect more people - not only in the present, but also in the future.

I would like to close this blog entry by sharing what I learned from one Jewish sage about life mission: "Discovering our life mission is part of our life mission." One of the ways I fulfill my mission is by helping others help themselves discover theirs. And perhaps the most important thing I can do in this role is to help them realize that each one of us has a unique mission.