“And what three new things do you know that you didn’t know when last you left us?” The priest of the many-faced god, in George R.R. Martin’s epic Game of Thrones saga, would ask little Arya Stark this questions every night upon her return to the temple to resume her apprenticeship. To the naked eye, this may seem like a curious preface to meaningless banter, but to the keenly analytical eye of the scientist it reeks of something more profitably growth-minded; There’s a motive behind the question and hasn’t anything to do with small-talk. It’s a challenge for her to step out of her comfort zone and really think about the new things she’s actually learned.
Now, you may wonder what possible returns could be gleaned from a simple question like this, but keep in mind: It’s not the answer that matters; It’s the action required in seeking it.
For example, in our younger years, during the brain’s crucial development stage, our minds are constantly learning new things and adding them to the memory bank in order to adapt to the new and exciting world we are discovering. This “learning curve” is the process that serves as root- and eventually branch- to the depth of our mental capacity apropos of the perception and understanding required for later accomplishment- A key abstraction on why so much emphasis is made in schooling youth on the rudiments of everyday life. Over time, however, this accumulation of various day-to-day knowledge becomes so uniform that our minds growth begins to plateau and shift into autonomy, or “mental cruise-control”. Henceforth, limiting our ability to advance our development.
Paradoxically, the cause of this limitation stems not from reaching full maturity or even breezing past a growth-spurt, but dominion; our minds reach such a degree of self-reliance that learning doesn’t seem necessary anymore- “We’re adults now, masters of our lives. No more need to get caught up in books….”
Unfortunately, such misconceptions dominate the norm of society today, and understandably so, but contrary to popular thought, our mind’s continuation of growth actually hinges on its ability to continue learning despite reaching any particular age demarcation. And here’s the paradox: ot’s the mastery we seek to achieve over stuff that shifts us into “cruise-control”, letting out subconscious do the driving. This is how we plateau, because, in essence, out minds lack the much-needed stimulation that helps them thrive. The reason for this lies in what’s known as neuro-plasticity, which means the mind is not hard-wired, or set in stone, but soft-wired-plastic and malleable, dependent on working through challenges in order to grow- The more we continue to learn, the more pliable we become; the more comfortable we become (due to superiority of our aptitude), the more stagnancy will settle in.
It’s as the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi told Daniel Goleman in a New York Times interview back in 1986, “People seem to concentrate best when the demands on them are a bit greater than usual. If there’s too little demand on them,” they get “bored”. However, in the process of learning, developing facility over something demands more of our attention, which requires us to work harder in our capacity. Therefore, this demand, or tension, is what incites the very growth we experience- more so than the aptitude we earn through the experience.
So when the Priest asks her the question, Arya has to shift gears in order to recall the new things she’s become aware of- she’s thinking more, and now she’s starting to concentrate more in order to learn more, which promotes even more growth. In time, her memory expands to keep pace with the development. In turn, this improved capacity of memory furthermore improves the efficacy of her recall, understanding, and associations, which incite a chain-reaction of even greater benefits birthed only through this single act of continued learning, giving her an edge in becoming the best version of herself- the true motive behind the priests question- all from opting for manual overdrive rather than the ease of autonomy.
You see, it’s like this: when there is too much slack on an instrument’s chords, the pitch will sound weak- a sign that a little tension is needed to find its proper tune. The same can be said of the mind; we need tension-not too tight, but just right to keep us moving in a forward motion. This is not a revolutionary idea. Since time immemorial it has been recognized that this is the best route to peak performance in any endeavor we wish to pursue, and it doesn’t require anything out of the question; a simple 3 new things a day could easily suffice to keep our gears functioning at optimal capacity.
All of this may seem like an oversimplification, but it’s not that complicated: when we have a purpose to learn new things, it challenges us to do so; the purpose keeps us engaged, while the challenge promotes growth.
Think about this, our mind’s memory bank has very deep pockets- so much so that in cruise-control it tends to only notice what’s prominent or out of the ordinary. This is because if we haven’t done it all, we’ve seen it all so most of what we actually do see and hear throughout the day passes us by without a second thought. This is monotony, and it is the slack in our chords. To tighten it up, we need to seek the tension, because the very comfort we all ten to want in life is actually inhibitory, for “in a state of tension,” according to Von Clausewitz, “A decision will always have greater effect; partly because greater will-power and greater pressure of circumstances are involved, and partly because everything is already prepared for major action….Any move made in a state of tension will be made more important, and will have more results, than it would have if made in a state of equilibrium”.
Now, Albert, this was him theorizing about war strategy almost 200 years ago, the relevance here today is striking: to be at our best, we need to challenge ourselves often; to challenge ourselves we need to constantly learn and try to understand things we do not know, moving from one thing to the next to keep our minds engaged, because as we discussed earlier: it’s not necessarily the content that matters, but rather the abdication of complete comfort i.e., tension. That’s what really matters!
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