@philosophyminis: If you want to get better at learning something, you have to reframe what learning actually is. Because learning is not about reading a new fact or a first exposure to something. Learning is the constant battle against forgetfulness. Learning is the never-ending effort of fighting the mind’s need to erase things and clear up some space. A lot of people have heard of the learning curve, but what's probably more important is the 19th-century Hermann Ebbinghaus's idea of the forgetting curve. Ebbinghaus's various studies showed that our memory loss is sharpest in the first 20 minutes after learning something, and then it roughly halves in the first hour. After a day or two, your forgetfulness curve will plateau a bit, and that'll vary depending on lifestyle factors like stress, and sleep, and so on. Which means, if I gave you 20 random toys to memorise, most people would remember ten within an hour, and about three within a week. There are two things to take away from this. The first is that repetition and revision is the best, and possibly only, way to prevent memory loss. And the second is about the mind. Because the mind does not forget things out of a kind of masochistic spite or weakness, it forgets what is no longer useful. It keeps what it needs. And so, what you remember is a reflection of your own personality and your own lifestyle. And so, the good learner is somebody who asks, 'What I can be forgetful about.' They are intentional about forgetfulness. They will ask themselves, 'What am I willing to forget, and how can I prevent forgetting it?'

Jonny Thomson

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Friday 28 August 2026 18:45:00 GMT