#179 Intellectual understanding vs Internalized knowledge

ByLukas
| |

Intellectually understanding that the perfect speech includes a strong opening, humor, a dramatic demonstration, rhetorical elements, and emotional appeal doesn’t mean your next speech will contain those elements right away – and that’s okay.

You don’t have to master this today.

Intellectually understanding the nuances and body positioning of a yoga pose doesn’t mean the next time you stand in that pose, you’ll perform it perfectly right away – and that’s okay.

You don’t have to master this today.

Intellectually understanding verbs, tenses, or case systems in a foreign language doesn’t mean you’ll be able to use them correctly in conversations right away – and that’s okay.

You don’t have to master this today.

Turning intellectual understanding into internalized knowledge and skill is a slow, layered process:

  1. Intellectually understand which things to do differently from before.
  2. Mindfully become aware of the moment when you need to do things differently.
  3. Do things differently from before.
  4. Repeat every day.

Similar Posts

  • | |

    #45 The tragedy of the spoken word

    ByLukas

    Language helps us describe the world we perceive. Yet in doing so, it closes our eyes, our ears, our touch, and our heart to the parts of the world we don’t have words for.

    Every language is a lens on a felt reality within and around us – both clarifying and categorizing the world, and limiting it by the words it has available.

    Learning more languages gives you new lenses – and a richer sense of reality.

    But just like the structure of our ears limit the sounds we can hear, and the structure of our eyes limit colors we can see, the structure of any language somehow limits our felt experience of the world.

    How do we re-access memories, emotions, hidden away in a long-forgotten language?

    How do we re-learn to listen to the voices of the wordless world speaking to our animal self… the voices that once upon a time, before verbal language emerged, were all we had?

    there’s an eternal song
    drowned out by the confines of my mother tongue
    a wordless melody that once made sense
    until our brain started blurring it with a lens
    narrowing it down
    neglecting its nuances through verbs and nouns

    with all its might language wants us to abide
    but the wordless world it tries to hide
    will forever be inside

    Lukas Van Vyve
  • | |

    #108 The Unexpected Complement

    ByLukas

    Unique value often lies in seemingly strange combinations.

    The beekeeping lawyer.

    The pro soccer player with an astrophysics degree.

    The theologist waking up early every morning to go surfing.

    The public servant spending their evenings performing at the local stand-up comedy bar.

    The motorcycle repair shop owner writing philosophy books.

    The chess champion with a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu black belt.

    Societal pressure and expectations make such combinations unlikely. Out of the ordinary. Maybe even undesirable: an obstacle to conformity.

    And if it’s undesirable, it becomes rare.

    And here’s the twist: what’s rare usually becomes valuable.

    Because there’s nothing incompatible about these combinations – in fact, the skills you practice may well complement each other in unique and valuable ways.

    What could be an unexpected complement for your life?

    Something you’re secretly interested in, but – according to society – doesn’t fit who you are (or who you’re supposed to be)?

  • #2 Why I write

    ByLukas

    If writing and creating every day were as vital to my survival as drinking water, ingesting food, and bonding… What would life look like?

    Biologically, all behavior is driven by pain, pleasure, and the triggers and habits that come from repeated reaction to those stimuli.

    So I eat because I want to escape the pain of hunger – or heartbreak, sadness, and frustration.

    I connect with others because I’m neurologically hardwired to feel pleasure when bonding… and pain and deprivation when I’m abandoned.

    Similarly, I write because I want to escape the frustration of not being able to put into words an insight.

    I also write because I enjoy the rush resulting from finding the words that convey what I want to say.

    I write because I love the tingling in my back and neck when I combine those words into sentences with just the right rhythm, just the right cadence capturing the meaning, context, emotion of what I want to say…

    I write because writing wrests the essence from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions racing through my mind and body.

    I write because when when I write, I feel that at last, I can make sense of life.

    And the more meaning I find, the more likely I am to write.

  • |

    #289 You don’t even know half of what’s possible

    ByLukas

    You don’t need to know how the story will end to start it.

    In fact, if you think you know how it’ll end, you close yourself off from the possibility of it ending even better than you ever thought possible.

    So start without fear. Start with an open mind.

    Then keep going without fear. Keep going with an open mind.

    Because you don’t even know half of what’s truly possible.

    Isn’t that a nice way to start your day?

  • #6 Brevity

    ByLukas

    As I gain more expertise in a certain field, I expect my posts on that topic to get shorter.

    Because raw material starts with a lot of fluff, and only through sculpting away, day by day do I get closer to the essence.

    So…

    If my posts on a topic I’m familiar with are getting longer on average, I’m off-track.

    If they become more abstract, I’m getting off-track.

    In other words…

    When I don’t yet have so much to say
    I can’t stop talking
    Until I sculpt away
    Realize
    Some words matter more than others
    And what’s left is
    Enough

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *