What Are You Learning Right Now?

When I think about what I’ve been interested in over the years, I realize I’ve always liked understanding how things work. I think it all started when I watched Mr. Roger’s as a little girl. I absolutely loved it when he showed us how something was made. I still have vivid memories of his trip to the graham cracker factory! To this day, If something catches my attention, I usually end up reading more about it, looking up related ideas, or trying to figure out how to do it myself. That can lead me to learn a new technique in Illustrator, research a place before a trip, read about a historical topic, or figure out the best way to approach a creative project. I have been able to teach myself many skills, including designing and running this website all on my own!

So obviously, I love the idea of documenting learning as part of memory keeping. We usually record the big events and obvious milestones, but our interests say a lot about who we are at a particular point in life. Our story includes the books we’re reading, the subjects we keep looking up, the hobbies we’re trying, and the skills we’re practicing. Years later, I think it would be interesting to look back and remember what had my attention at the time, especially the things that felt ordinary enough that I never thought to write them down.

Document What Has Your Attention

One of the easiest places to start is with whatever you find yourself interested in right now. I can go through phases where I read everything I can find about a particular subject. Other times, I focus on something I'm doing. Before a trip, for example, I spend a lot of time researching the places we're going to visit. I want to know about the history, museums, neighborhoods, landmarks, and anything else that might help me understand what I'm going to see.

These interests can be surprisingly temporary. Something can occupy a huge amount of my attention for a few months and then slowly be replaced by something else. Unless I've documented it in some way, I may barely remember how interested I once was in it.

A memory keeping page about this doesn't need to be complicated. You could photograph the books you're reading, save a screenshot of something you've been researching, make a list of your current interests, or write a few sentences about a subject you can't seem to stop reading about. I think it would be fun to have a record of these things from different years and see which interests disappeared and which ones stayed with me.

Remember What It Was Like to Be a Beginner

There are plenty of finished projects in my scrapbooks and photo library, but I don't have nearly as many pictures of myself figuring out how to make them. That's something I'd like to do a better job of documenting.

Learning a creative skill usually involves a lot of experimenting. I've spent countless hours figuring out Illustrator and other design programs over the years. Even now, I regularly run into something I don't know how to do. I'll look it up, try a few things, make mistakes, and eventually add one more skill to everything I've learned before.

The same thing happens with hobbies. Think about the first time you tried a craft you now do without thinking, worked on a difficult LEGO build, attempted a new recipe, learned a game, picked up a camera, or started using a new piece of technology. The messy middle of learning can be easy to overlook once you know what you're doing.

I'd like to take more pictures during that stage. A computer screen with a project in progress, supplies scattered across a table, an instruction book beside a half-built project, or even something that didn't turn out the way I hoped would tell a different story than a photograph of the finished result. A few sentences about what I was trying to learn would make the memory even better.

Remember Who You Learned From

Some of the things we know came from books or classes, but so much of what we learn comes from other people. There are things I do today because someone showed me how years ago, and sometimes I don't even think about where I learned them anymore.

That opens up an entirely different kind of story to preserve. Who taught you to cook something your family still makes? Who helped you learn to drive? Was there a teacher who made you interested in a subject you still love? Maybe a parent or grandparent taught you a hobby, or your own children introduced you to something you never would have discovered on your own.

I especially like this idea because learning goes in every direction as we get older. We teach our children and grandchildren, but they teach us plenty too. Friends share what they know. Family members introduce us to new interests. Sometimes a five-minute conversation with someone changes the way we do something for years.

Those stories may not naturally show up in a monthly roundup or vacation scrapbook, so they may need a little more effort to preserve. A photo of the person, a memory about something they taught you, and a few details about why it stayed with you would be enough.

A Different Kind of Timeline

One thing I like about looking at learning this way is that it gives us another way to see how we've changed over time. If I could go back and make a list of what interested me every September for the past twenty years, I'm sure I'd find some things that make me laugh, some I'd completely forgotten, and others that are still part of my life.

We already create timelines with birthdays, vacations, homes, jobs, and family milestones. Our interests and abilities create a quieter timeline alongside all of those things. We can see what we used to know nothing about, what we eventually became good at, what we tried and abandoned, and what we loved enough to keep doing.

Remember...

The more I think about learning as part of memory keeping, the more surprised I am that I haven't documented it more often. I have plenty of photographs that show where I've been and what I've done, but they don't always show what I was thinking about, trying to understand, or working hard to learn at the time.

I'm going to try to pay more attention to that. Every once in a while, I want to stop and ask myself what I'm learning right now and save the answer somewhere. It might be a scrapbook page, a few photos, or just a note in my monthly roundup. I know that the future me will really appreciate that someday!