A Body of Knowledge

Satie's Gymnopedie No 1 is such a reflective piece. It sets the right mood for me on this Saturday night to write my blog article of the week. I had a good exercise session at the park and my whole body feels very tired but at the same time, pleasantly relaxed from the workout.

I was listening to a lecture series on language and the mind while jogging just now. Sometimes I think exercise is just an excuse for me to listen to my audiobooks. Driving used to be my audiobook time but since I started working from home, this listening opportunity has been significantly reduced. 

This is why my weekly exercise session has become an essential activity for me. I used to have the bad habit of working every weekend but since my weekdays these days are so busy, I try to spend Saturday and Sunday pursuing my recreational activities. Blogging and listening to audiobooks while exercising are among them.  

The other day I was drawing a complicated architecture diagram and realised that I haven't had a chance to do that for a long time. I've always used drawing as a tool for me to understand a difficult subject. I used to joke that I was a 'Powerpoint engineer', because building slides and doing presentations were all I did. But it was an activity that I also enjoyed because it helped me to organise and think about a subject systematically. 

By diagramming concepts, even if they are just block diagrams with text, you allow your brain to bring in visuals and motion into the process of learning. Thinking and learning is more effective if it is a whole-body experience. I find that by doodling thoughts on a piece of paper and then detailing them neatly in a Powerpoint slide helps me to tackle a subject effectively.

During those days, I used to write a lot of proposals too. When producing these documents, I alternated between writing and drawing to articulate my thoughts. My documentation were always full of diagrams. I wanted them to read like 'comic books' because I knew people preferred to look at diagrams rather than read text. Comprehension is always more effective when they engage all the senses. 

Imagine the whole body is your brain. You talk and think with your whole body. Muscles are your memory banks. You absorb information from the whole not only with input from your five sense but also through active interaction with the physical world. You literally grasp concepts with your hand when you draw a diagram.

When I jog while listening to an audiobook, my hands and feet also participate in understanding the concepts conveyed. Information becomes the fuel that powers my entire body. With every stride I take, all the thoughts and ideas from the book are being processed and transmuted into knowledge. Over time, they are absorbed into the system--this mind and body--and hopefully one day, they would manifest themselves as wisdom, in words and deeds.