the first encounter

First encounters are important. Not just with people, but also with ideas.

Learning takes place when new knowledge gets integrated into the old one. This is by no means a peaceful process. The old knowledge puts a fierce fight. At the end, old and new combine into something that does not contain faithful copies of either. This process is accumulative and over time it builds a unique perspective on life that is called you.

Most of the information processing during a first encounter happens at an unconscious level. That is why it is stealth and fast. During this stage of learning, cognitive dissonance will be at its greatest since the old knowledge and the new knowledge have just started their dance. You should relax and take the backseat as much as possible. The depth and scope of the resulting integration will depend on how much you let your unconscious do its work.

Observe the clash with as much objectivity and care as possible. There will be sparks all over the place. Write everything down, even the most stupid sounding observations. You will recognise the importance of these notes later on. Indeed, most will turn out to be stupid, but some will be quite original and luckily ground breaking.

Smartness alone is not enough to crack long standing problems. These problems are hard and they have resisted many attacks. They almost always require very original approaches. That is why inexperience and reckless vibrancy of youth are so indispensable for human progress.

You should be happy that you are young! Don’t be afraid of the establishment, the white haired men who collectively suffer from rigidity and homogenisation issues. Their cognitive dissonances create less many and less original sparks.

Observe your unique sparks, treat them as a treasure. You may eventually see some cracks in the establishment that have escaped the attention of many smart people over a very long time.

Do not let your uniqueness be hammered into standardisation through a brutal education programme. Run away if necessary. (But bear in mind that completely unguided first encounters can be dangerous too. You can easily get pulled into a path that is known to be a dead-end. This is where having a good teacher / advisor can help.)

Finally, remember that the clash comes for free. Genius is all about good observation skills. Just take a seat and watch.

Update (October 2018) : Apparently first encounters have the same importance immunologically as they do cognitively.

Imprinting is the name given to the observation that an immune system mounts its most effective response to the first flu strain it ever encounters. A memory of this first response is retained by the system and subsequent responses are therefore likely to be poor matches for new and different strains, whether caught from someone else or introduced by inoculation as vaccines.

- A Deadly Touch of Flu (The Economist)