By sheer luck, my family and I walked up the steps of the Eiffel Tower on the evening of March 19, 2011 -- the night of the "Super Moon." The view was spectacular as a large red orb arose over the Parisian skyline.
If you would have asked me whether the moon was closer to me at that very moment or an hour later when it had lifted high into the sky, I would have said, "It's obvious ... the moon is closer right now."
Well, I would have been wrong. I was duped by the "moon illusion." Although the moon actually appears nearer on the horizon, it is actually farther away. (Sometimes by as much as one Earth radius.) Conversely, when it is high in the sky and appears smaller, it is physically closer.
I don't know if Sun Tzu understood the moon illusion when he provided military strategists this advice: "If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near" but both his quotation and the moon illusion are wonderful reminders that one of the most important things we need to unlearn is that our eyes -- and our intuition -- cannot always be trusted.
The Saint Ignatius church in Rome was originally designed to include a cupola. For financial reasons, the feature was never built.
In moment, sparked by Divine intervention perhaps, Church officials hired Andrea Pozzo to paint a fake dome on the ceiling over the altar. Today, more than 300 years later, many visitors are shocked to find out the spectacular cupola above them is not real but an illusion.
Sometimes all it takes to unlearn a problem is the willingness to embrace a new perspective.
Interested in some other examples of turning problems into opportunities? Check out these older posts by self-described "Chief Unlearning Officer" Jack Uldrich:
Please solve this problem: Tell me if the following statement is true or false:
"This statement is false."
If the statement is false, then it is true. If the statement is true, then it is false.
The above example is a well-known paradox but I believe one of the things society, parents, teachers, bosses and our educational establishment must unlearn is the idea that we need to create "problem-solvers."
What if some of today's most pressing issues can't be solved? What if the best society can do is select between a series of less-than-desirable options?
I am a big fan of being able to embrace ambiguity and, therefore, I'd like to suggest that if society is hell-bent on creating more "problem solvers" that it should also spend some time creating "dilemma managers" -- people who can embrace ambiguity; appreciate complexity; see beyond the traditional choices of black or white; and who can envision multiple paths to a better future.
Why? Because the world is complex; it isn't black or white; there are multiple paths forward; and solutions aren't always clear-cut.
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What do you see in the image to the right? If you are like most people you see a square made out of alternating rows of squares and circles. It is slightly more difficult to see the square as columns of alternating squares and circles.
It is, of course, just a matter of perspective but one way to unlearn is to begin seeing things from different perspectives.
For an unlearning exercise, here's a "corny" idea. Most of us eat our corn-on-the-cob one of two ways: We either eat it row-by-row as though we were operating an old manual typewriter or, alternatively, we spin the cob and eat it by column-by-column.
Whichever method you normally use, try it the other way.
For some related posts checkout these old posts:
"Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."
This is one of my favorite Winston Churchill quotes and I thought of it when I stumbled across the ambigram above. Do you see the word "teach" or "learn"?
Can you see both?
I like to think of unlearning as just a different form of learning. My problem is that, like Churchill, I don't always appreciate unlearning at the hands of other people; or, as Bob Dylan once memorably quipped, "Don't wanna learn from nobody what I gotta unlearn."
Click on the cat figure to the right and tell me which way the cat is spinning--clockwise or counter-clockwise? The truth is that you can train yourself to see it spin both ways. (In fact, if you're really open-minded, you can even train your brain to see it a third way--the cat will just go back-and-forth.)
Take a look at the picture to the right. What color are the two birds?
As hard as it may be to believe, they are actually the same color. (See the second picture directly below with the surrounding colors removed.)
I think this optical illusion is a wonderful metaphor for how all of us--myself included--see the world. We like to believe we are seeing the world objectively but the reality is that our vision is heavily influenced by the beliefs, assumptions and ideas which occupy our minds and thus distort what we think we are seeing.
Next time you are quick to judge a person or a situation, remember this optical illusion and ask yourself: Are you really seeing reality or just your perception of reality?
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Unlearn Your View of People and Colors
