September/October 2002
Feature Articles
Holistic Health Q & A
by John DeCosmo, D.O.
Of genes and gene testing and evaluation.
What is... the Organic Movement?
by Robert Roman
Part two of a three-part article detailing
the author's personal experiences and the growth of the organic movement.
UnCommon Sense!
by David Findlay
War - Iraq - Should we remove Saddam
Hussein?
Articles on the theme "The Learning Process"
A Basket Weaver
by Lou Galgano
An example of how one artist learns
and teaches what he knows.
Getting "It"
by Lewis Fishman
Using "it" as an inspiration
to learn.
Learning Without Harm
by Barbara Bedingfiled
How intellectualism has negatively
influenced our education of the young - and how to counter this.
Music and Movement, and Learning
by Bob and Claire Franki
How the combination of music with movement
from age zero not only facilitates musicianship but increases coordination
and learning.
September 12
by Janet Kato
A moment when the learning process
became the healing process
Learning From Everything
by Patrick Plaskett
Learning from life - from both the
"good" and the "bad."
Learning From Other Cultures
by Dr. Jean Houston
The birth of the Planetary Human
The Relationship Learning Process
by Bob Murray, Ph.D.
How our problems stem from failed relationships;
how to make good ones.
Learning From Everything
by Patrick Plaskett
When I was twenty-two years old, I set out to make my fortune as a rock-'n-roll guitar player. I played in various bands, moving around the country and living in motel rooms. It was a fun, adventurous life. I had many fine experiences and problems, both in the US and in Europe. I was young, and intelligent enough to realize that I knew little of the world, but I was willing to learn. I would often talk to fans and invite them to party with me after the show. Many would do so. Others would tell me that they had to get up in the morning and go to their regular jobs and carry on their regular lives the next day. I noticed a sharp contrast between the regular people of the day and the itinerant world of musicians; most ordinary people knew what city they would be waking up in, where they would be going to work, what kind of problems they were likely to encounter, and what their social contacts would be, while I had very little of that. I also had problems that would occur that most people don't have to deal with, such as learning to live in tight quarters with other musicians who were never chosen to be part of my life because we were all compatible roommates. I learned to adapt. My adaptation skills were tested at every turn. Some problems that I encountered when living on the road were even more severe, such as truck breakdowns and arriving in a far-flung city only to find that there was no job. I learned to take it in stride. Life was often hectic and chaotic, but I took the intensity of it willingly. During my travels, I found an attitude that has served me well throughout the years: every experience that the universe provides for me is for my enjoyment or my education, or both. I can always learn, and be better for it, even when things don't seem to be going well. When taken as such, one can only get better at living.
What is life to you? To some, life is a chore, or a grind, or routine, or a big sandwich of crap with every day being another bite. Some people work all day and spend the evening numbing the mind with television, or some other trivial diversion to help them forget the day. Some people seem to be simply putting in time for their entire lives until the time comes for them to finally punch out. Some people take problems of life as just a pain, as nothing more than a bump in the road, a road ultimately leading to their death, and they just hope that the road will be as smooth as possible until they get there. To others, life is an unfolding of mysteries, a beautiful and energetic thing, in spite of difficulties. To them, the universe is seen as a system with everything working perfectly. We can be bewildered by its complexities, enchanted by its possibilities. We can extract goodness from life's events, even in the face of problems.
To many people, life can be a test. But there are different ways of looking at tests. I've had some teachers in school that only administered tests because they were part of the school system requirements. To them, you basically passed or you failed. Other teachers, however, had an entirely different view of tests: they merely show you what you haven't learned yet. To these teachers, tests were an opportunity for self-improvement, for they showed us where the learning process was not yet complete. Tests give us a chance to make corrections in our knowledge and assumptions and rise to our true potential. They show us what we need to learn.
Life is full of tests. If you learn from them, you get to move on to a higher level. If you fail a test, you get to take it again. I'm sure you know a person who keeps marrying the same kind of troublesome mate or keeps getting into the same kind of wrong job; they get to keep taking the test over and over. I believe that they have trouble relating to their difficulties in a proper fashion. If you are willing to learn from all of life's experiences, then the term "bad experience" takes a whole new meaning. Then, a bad experience is one in which you neither enjoyed anything nor learned anything.
You may not be able to control all the events in your life, and you are certainly not able to control the actions of others, but you can control your attitudinal relationship to any event. You can learn something and be better for it. This attitude must be practiced to make it strong. So often all of our energy is spent blaming others for problems.
Sometimes the problems get very, very big. Two weeks ago, my only sister Terry died on an operating table in Atlanta. A beautiful and energetic event, her life, had come to a close. My heart was broken. For a while, all I knew was sadness, coming wave after wave. Then I had to make sense out of everything. I learned what she truly meant to me when she was alive, and what she still means to me. I learned about the connections that we all share with those in our lives now and those that have been a part of our lives.
Each of us is a learning machine. If we look deeply into any problem, we can find something that we can carry away for ourselves. It takes a proper attitude. Relate to all of life as an opportunity to learn about the beauty of it, or to learn about the complexity of it. Greet every test as an opportunity to learn and go on to the next level of fulfillment. Learn from everything and make your life better.
Patrick Plaskett is a member of the Florida Association of Professional Hypnotists and holds a bachelor's degree from USF. He can be reached at the Center for Healing in St. Petersburg FL. (727) 381-9101.
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