Learning Amnesia Is Real
The art of understanding is an intellectual superpower.
The secret to remembering anything is to forget trying to remember anything entirely.
I learned how to solve learning amnesia forever.
It took 3 steps.
My Worst Fear As A Learner
I used to f*cking lose it when I forgot something I had just read.
The intolerable pain of learning amnesia; I genuinely thought it was impossible to learn. I did well in school; really well actually. But I always hated it.
Being great at something you hate is a hell for anybody.
I always believed that I was the problem. My brain. My short-term attention span and "lack of focus."
But the problem wasn't psychological.
It was philosophical.
Everything You Know Is Wrong
Most people attempt to try or learn with the wrong goal in mind. We've been told to aim for word count, page numbers, and to memorise for tests. Grades don't exist in the real world; problems do.
I used to be obsessed with Obsidian.
It's a note-taking app. I never really liked Notion.
But I was obsessed with building my own second brain or zettelkasten; a collection of curated notes and ideas to serve as a intellectual storage vault.
This was how I was going to learn everything.
I worked on it obsessively for nearly 2 months, ignoring my emotionally depressing thesis tasks.
But it was helping me to successfully accomplish the wrong goal.
70,000 words written but with zero understanding.
What went wrong?
Here's the truth I had to learn painfully.
Documentation does not equal understanding.
Information collection does not equal transformation
Learning is not about storage. It's about change.
The mind is not a vault but a garden.
It's a living ecosystem consisting of you.
The Motivation To Learn Should Terrify You
This is something that nobody ever f*cking considers.
It genuinely pisses me off.
School tests have completely destroyed the desire for enlightenment. We're forced to memorise for forms of testing methods that serve little practicality. The education system prepares people for tests. True learning should prepare you for life.
The purpose of education is prepare people to solve problems.
It's the ultimate rebirth.
Why bother learning anything? To change an undesired function (not speaking Spanish) into a desired one (fluent in Spanish).
Why bother trying to improve yourself? So you don't suffer stupidly like a f*cking idiot.
You read books as a means of exposure to other people's understandings. Books shouldn't inform you, but transform you.
The more you understand, the less likely you'll be to stumble into the fiery pits of preventable suffering.
How Understanding Shattered My Old Worldview
It struck me when I was on a boat.
I was away on a lads holiday. Nothing too crazy.
We were going around the coastlines. Perfect time to just sit there and think.
Before when I used to think about anything it was never done deeply. By deeply I mean this:
most of my thoughts were just basic, memorised ideas that I didn't even put there.
Most of my thoughts weren't my own because I didn't understand them. They felt like visual stories being played out in front of my eyes.
I had no control over them.
I also think I think in words and images, thinking upon reflection.
Now I know this newsletter is about learning. But I truly believe that understanding is a gift.
I was never able to think for myself.
My mind always did the thinking for me. Emotions, beliefs, the core stories my mind would present involuntarily.
Once I learned to crack through the wall before me, it all changed.
I changed in lots of ways.
I went from reading entire books and forgetting them instantly.
I went from believing I had a terrible memory.
I went from barely being able to understand anything - but this included my own mind.
Now that I know how to understand something, I can change it. I can now understand complex books. I can write and think more effectively. I can tear myself apart and destroy the false assumptions that weaken me.
If you learn how to understand anything, this will include not just books but how your mind works.
How To Learn ANYTHING In 3 Steps
Here's how you learn anything:
Active recall in your own words with spaced repetition.
Active recall is for testing yourself without looking at the source material; practise retrieving the information from your mind.
Explaining concepts in your own words tests your understanding.
Spaced repetition is for frequently reviewing, testing, and even changing your understanding across time.
The wonderful thing about this framework? It works for any subject or skill.
Books. Martial Arts. Relationships. Languages. Engineering. Quantum physics.
You name it.
Step 1: Consume Until You Can't Understanding
Read for 10-15 minutes maximum. Or until you encounter one concept that challenges your current understanding.
Stop when you hit your knowledge limit.
If you're reading a book, consider stopping after a few paragraphs or after a chapter. This will obviously depend on the material.
Study a particular skill until something doesn't work. Maybe that grappling takedown you've been practising "won't work" for some reason.
The denser the material the less reading you'll need.
Don't let this discourage you.
Slow reading is quality reading.
Your comprehension is your guiding spirit.
Step 2: Become A Teacher
Close the book. Look away.
Spend 5 minutes explaining what you just read.
This is perhaps the most important point: ask yourself questions.
What is the main idea here?
How does this idea apply to my life?
How can I implement this into my habits?
What problems does this solve?
You'll know you've mastered your understanding if you can explain it in simple terms with zero stuttering.
If you can't explain it you have some re-reading to do.
Remember: none of this is about memorisation. It's about changing how you make sense of any given thing.
You're creating a new understanding of the world.
Step 3: Do This Repeatedly Over Time To Retain The Information
If you don't use it, you'll lose it.
Review your understanding at these intervals:
1 hour
1 day
3 days
1 week
2-3 weeks
1 month
3 months
You don't need to memorise something if it shapes how you live your life daily. It will simply be part of who you are.
The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge.
Aristotle
Make the information part of how you live.
Your habits. Specific questions it answers. Problems it solves.
You need to give information a reason to become knowledge.
If you constantly retrieve and think about what you learn, you won't need to memorise anything. It becomes part of how you act and respond to the world.
Transformation achieved.
What If It Doesn't Work?
Easy.
Can't recall anything = read shorter passages (1-2 paragraphs).
Too confused = look for easier material as a start.
Can't explain it = you don't understand it. Go re-read.
Always forgetting = increase how often you review and test yourself.
"I don't have time" = steal 5 minutes away from TikTok time.
Once you face a problem, you've exposed a knowledge gap. Here are the gaps already filled in for you.
No more learning problems.
No more learning amnesia.
The Learning Protocol
Here's the learning protocol ready to be adopted.
Read until you hit something you don't understand (5-15 minutes max)
Close the book and explain out loud for 5 minutes straight
Review at intervals: 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month
Apply this to any subject or skill.
This is how you gain mastery.
Reading for increased understanding really is a profound idea.
If you want to test your new intellectual superpower, you can check out my previous newsletters.
Even better, you can download my free eBook, The Golden Habit System (imagine Aristotle as your personal habit coach).
It's a free PDF file, but formatted like a real book. It looks pretty cool actually.
I'm trying to get it published on Amazon but I've been experiencing formatting issues.
When I get it up successfully you'll be the first to know.
You can also read it here on my Substack page.
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment or send me a message if you have any questions.
- Profound Ideas
Check out these newsletters (each one builds upon one another)
Explaining what you just read makes a lot of sense. The books I remember the most are the ones I tell my wife about, because I’m explaining them to her. Now I just need to slow down and re-read as necessary.
I do so much copy pasting into Obsidian but I stayed mentally lazy. Practicing this, kind of the Feynman technique, is really key in understanding and remembering. Thank you for this gem!