True understanding and knowledge are acquired not just by consuming information, but by actively thinking about it to make it one's own, transforming raw material into internalized wisdom.
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The enlightenment philosopher and physician John Lach once penned a sentence in one of his essays
which happens to be the crux of how to acquire true understanding and knowledge and learning.
Now, if you like me consider yourself to be a lifelong learner, you may have run
into a particular problem that I know I have and actually most learners have. And that is
despite reading many books, you can sometimes feel you're always reading but never learning.
You may say things like, "I just can't seem to remember what it is I've read."
Well, in this video, I'm going to share with you Lock's single sentence, but we're going to break
it apart together and weigh it up because as we do, we're going to find out the key to actually
developing true knowledge and understanding from what we read. But we'll also find the
catastrophic approach that undermines our ability to learn. an error in thinking which we may not
realize we have. After that, I'll share with you one brilliantly simple and highly effective
tip which will enable you to immediately get far more out of what you read instantly. So,
let's take a look at John Lock's sentence. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials
of knowledge. It is thinking makes what we read ours. That is the wet stone on which the blade of
learning is perpetually sharpened. I don't think Lock's sentence could be phrased any
better because he's managed to distill down to the essence of the truth of how we gain true knowledge
and understanding of something. But be warned, there is an insight within his comment which the
majority of people will miss and will nullify the power of what they've just heard. In fact,
many people watching this video will make that mistake straight away. So, what we're going to
do is we're going to unpack this sentence to extract its riches for ourselves and change
the way we learn for good. So the first thing to say about the sentence is that it's in two parts,
isn't it? The first part that what we read or you could say what we watch now and listen to
furnishes us with the materials of knowledge and the second part is thought makes it our
own. Now the second part is the real fire. It's the crucible in which everything we take in the
dross is smelted away and we are left with the glittering solid refined precious metal.
But despite that, the vast majority of people will spend the vast majority of their time on the first
part alone. And that is a catastrophic error of approach as lock fully understood. So why is that?
It's because if you ask most people and myself included, we're quite vague and fuzzy in our
thinking why they're reading something. They'll say, "I'm reading to gain knowledge." But look
at what Loach said. He said, "Reading furnishes us with the materials of knowledge, not knowledge
itself." And this comment that we read to gain knowledge um and that reading will make us smarter
almost of itself is a real big misunderstanding of how we learn. A lot of people would think like
this if you could put it into words. If I read lots of books and I take care to remember the
facts and the advice and this that and the other then I will be a knowledgeable person. Now I can
prove that by the YouTube comment sections. So this video itself, there's probably hundreds who
after hearing me give Lock's sentence will be like, "Yeah, I get that." And they've moved on.
Don't need to see the rest of the video. They are the kind of people who will leave a comment down
below saying, "The advice is John Lock sentence." And others will be like, "Thanks. Save me 20
minutes of viewing." Lock, ironically, is pointing the finger at those ones, calling them out because
they've made the mistake of thinking memorizing a piece of advice is knowing it. And that's not the
case. So, you could phrase John Lock John Lock's sentence gives rise to two other maxims you could
say. The first is that to know of something is not to really know it. Um, I've got a coin here. Okay.
Now, it's a pound coin and it's an older one. So, it's got Queen Elizabeth's um image on it. Now,
I could say I know that's Queen Elizabeth II. Does that mean I knew Queen Elizabeth II? No. They're
vastly different things. The second one is an intimate relationship. Truly knowing someone. Now,
the same goes for facts and information we read. When we read something and go, "Oh, that's a bit
of advice now. I've memorized that. I know that." No, you know it, it has not become a part of you.
It's not become intimate. You're not intimately acquainted with how it really works. And that's
what lock is driving at to become knowledgeable. This is proved further in day-to-day life.
You see people on YouTube for instance saying I like to read one book every single week or one
book every 3 days and as if that is going to make them knowledgeable of itself. What that will do is
it will give you knowledge of lots of good advice but it won't make you intimately acquainted with
it. It won't have become part of you and therefore it hasn't made you very full of understanding and
truly knowledgeable. Now the other maxim that we want to consider is this. You can remember a
fact and not know it. But you cannot know a fact without having a memory of it. Now let's explore
this. You can remember, you can memorize facts and advice and still not know them. Let's demonstrate
this. Finish this equation for me. E= MC. Now, for however many thousands watched this video,
practically all of you said squared. E= MC². Now, let me So, you you know that truth. You know that
fact. But let me ask you a different question. Could you explain E= MC²? Are you intimately
familiar with it? Could you demonstrate how using that equation, this coin here could provide the
power to support an entire city for a year or something? Do you know how the equation
comes to that point and that you could demonstrate it? Probably not. So, you've memorized the fact,
but it doesn't mean to say you know it. And we all do this. And when we approach learning this way,
I'm reading it and I'm trying to memorize lots of things and then later on weeks later you think,
I feel like I've been reading but never learning. This is why because we've confused getting to know
of a fact with truly knowing it. And this brings up the second part of Lock's statement, which is
the critical part. So I'm not saying remembering stuff is wrong. By the way, reading furnishes
us with the materials of knowledge, but it's not knowledge itself. Think of it this way. Your mind
is a building site. A book brings along timbers and cement and sand and um bricks and windows,
but it doesn't bring the house. You have to the book may supply the guidelines, the architectural
plans, but you have to construct it. Most of us treat it like I'm getting all these upgrades for
my mind and these facts and plopping them in as if that will do any good. You know, a building
full of upgrades is a warehouse. It's only useful if you've got a machine and you actually install
the upgrades. So that brings us on to the second part of John Lock's sentence where the real magic
happens. But this is the harder part which is why we often don't do it. He says that we need to make
information or advice or some truths or facts our own if they're going to really become knowledge.
It's the difference between, you know, putting coins in a piggy bank, you've basically hoarded
a load of coins, or eating something. Now, when you eat something, you've not just collected it.
It goes through your body. You extract the best out of it and it's assimilated into you. It's
become a part of you. So when we read, we don't just want to collect the information,
but we want to make it a part of us. And how do you do that? By thinking is what Loach said. It
makes it more personal. We begin to think, do I agree with this? Where would this not work?
That's always a good question because you stress test a bit of advice. If you're reading history,
can you take the time to envisage the scene? Play it through. Imagine you are the character.
How does this event relate to that event? Can I see the connection? If you're reading literature,
this character, who would be this character today amongst my friends or amongst people I've met,
if they're a baddie, you may not have bad friends. You see, you're making it your own. Now, speaking
of ownership, the writer Walter Benjamin um in an essay about unpacking a library, he had moved
house and he's got unpacking his library and he's talking about the books. He says this ownership
is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Now, what's this got to do with
learning? Well, he's not wrong. You know, when we own an object, it becomes far more important to
us. A person may hear of a neighbor's car being vandalized and may shake a solemn, you know,
deprecating head at the hoodlums who did it. But if the same person saw hoodlams coming towards his
car, the chap might risk confrontation, even bodily harm to get between them and his car.
Why? Because he owns it. Why? So what? Well, it's become a part of him. He takes his kids to school
in it. He his work depends on it. He goes to work in it. He's made journeys in it on holidays. Um
even when it's sold, people will still feel a sense of sorrow when they watch an old car drive
away. When we own something, it becomes intimate to us. Now, if that's the case with objects,
how much more so with thoughts? When what we read, we take the time to digest it, to not just rush on
to collect the next thought to deposit in our mental piggy bank as if that's making us rich,
which it isn't. We instead digest it, take it in, walk around with it, look at it from all sides,
draw our own conclusions from it. Now we know that piece. It can either be a bit of advice which we
find fails or is really profound. But we've become intimate with it and it's part of us. Now we have
something that will stick with us. In fact, we will now remember it. And isn't that curious?
A lot of times we're taught that memorization is the root to knowledge when in fact it's the
outcome of knowledge. You know, even if you think mathematics and cooking, you might think that's
memorizing. But actually, how do you memorize? By doing constant cooking. By doing constant sums,
you're forced to interact, to be with the fact that you're exploring multiplication, division,
and by constant repetition, you're making it part of your own. Now, if you were to take that and
build something in your house when you were a kid, um my father-in-law built a catapult when he was
a kid that could throw stones over the house using mathematics. Do you see how that would
become so much part of you that you don't forget it? then you truly know how an equation works,
not just that the equation is correct. And that's what lock is driving at. To become knowledgeable,
we need to view our reading as furnishing us with the materials so that we can now think upon them
to make them our own. And that's when you have real knowledge. You become intimately acquainted
with what you've learned. and then you'll remember it. So, one tip, how do you do this? There's many
ways, there's certain questions you can ask and a lot of it starts with questions. But this is the
answer. The most sovereign of all human influence yet found in the meanest of homes, a pencil.
When you read, always read with a pencil and write your thoughts in the margins or at least in a book
to the side because when you're reading, you have thoughts of the moment. As Edgar Alan Poe said, in
fact, I'll give you a quote from Edgar Alan Poe. In getting my books, I have always been solicitors
of an ample margin. He always wanted a margin, a big margin around his books. Why? because he
mentioned that he could jot the thoughts of the moment that occurred to him as he read. You see,
we can read and yes, we can understand something, but our thoughts are like vapors. They blow away
in the breeze of our, you know, the mistral of our thoughts which are constantly moving and
and ediing and throwing and we lose our thoughts. But when you take the time to write it, it hones
you in on not just remembering what's being said, but eating it, getting intimate with it,
thinking about it. I think the car the the author is wrong here because XY Z. Oh, will this person
go on to do this? I'm anticipating. This seems to be a theme running along in the book. Notice the
amount of times this word is used. You're stopping and you're actually thinking. And remember what
Loach said, "Reading gives us the materials. Thinking makes it our own." I'm going to show you
something now. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. My addition. Now I'll just show you the first
page. Can you see that? All marks on the word fog and writing all over the top. I think if I was to
turn the page, you know, you're gonna get more. Okay. Writing all over it. And if I kept turning,
you would see more and more writing through the whole book. Now, there's a reason I show. What do
you see on that? Don't you see not only Dickens words, but my thoughts melding around them?
They're becoming one. I'm making his words a part of my mind. And of course that enables me not only
to memorize but to glean any knowledge later to change my worldview to begin to see things which
a casual reading may not see. This is why Mortima Adler who wrote the famous book how to read a book
said this full ownership of a book only comes to those who mark it up. Do you notice that
word ownership again? Remember Walter Benjamin said that ownership is the most intimate thing
we have. And what did Loach say? When we think upon the materials we've ga gathered from a book,
it makes them our own. And so that is the key to never reading without learning. If you find you're
reading lots but keep forgetting what you're reading and don't feel you've got anywhere,
maybe don't read as much. Slow and steady wins the race. John Lockach refers to that
in his essay. Rather than chasing after lots of new information, which is what people do,
and we see it in the comment section on YouTube, saying, "Here's the advice. Move on."
They're not taking the time to follow a video which assists them in thinking it through and
will generate other thoughts for them to make it their own. When we approach knowledge that way and
reading books that way, then we become learners because we have taken the materials of knowledge
furnished to us by the things we read and made them our own by thought. If you've enjoyed this
video about John Lock's amazing advice as much as I've enjoyed meditating and talking about it
and you'd like to support the channel, consider either becoming one of my Patreons and you can go
to the link below where you'll get exclusive content or go to my buy me a coffee page and
make a small£3 pound donation. Everything you do to support me and making new videos really
helps. I thank you very much. Until the next time, I wish you joy in whatever you read.
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