How do you learn?

"Be open minded' is a phrase that everyone is familiar with.  I have no idea when you may have heard it the first time, but I could offer a guess and say that it was either from someone in a leadership position, or someone who wanted to sway your opinion forcefully.

Regardless of whether or not your encounter with this phrase has negative or positive connotations, it is still completely true.  And we all love to think that we do have an open mind, but do we really?  Do we actually have an open mind towards everything in our life, everything we encounter and everyone we meet?  No, we don't.

For instance, the first place most of us lack open-mindedness is in the area of where our information, growth and teaching comes from.  If you are part of a church, you expect all the life-giving and life-changing information to come from your pastor, your circle of friends, your spiritual mentor, your Bible study group.

If you are privileged to be employed in your dream job, you expect this information to come from a boss, a colleague or the industry itself.

Having a close-knit family might lead you to believe that that's the only place you will receive your guidance from.  It's different for everyone, but we all fall in the same trap: we don't expect guidance and teaching to come from anywhere else.

I've learned (slowly but surely) that I shouldn't be surprised when I find myself growing and learning through other means.  And in my case, this means (to a certain extent) that I'm learning from the shows I watch.

Very recently (and still ongoing) I've been challenged to look at the way I approach life.  We are such a selfish species (and I say "species" because my current "teacher" is The Doctor...a time traveller who encounters many alien races!); even those who are the least selfish had to make a conscious decision to think and concentrate away from themselves.  This begs the question:  How do you approach something new, something you've never encountered before, someone that's completely different from you, something or someone that may be the opposite of you, something or someone that may not have the best of intentions?

I reckon we should approach everything with childlike and wide-eyed wonder.  Look at it with excitement, be hungry to learn about it.  And if it turns out to be something bad, recognise it for what it is; but if it's brilliant, acknowledge its brilliance.  And if it's brilliantly bad...well, tip your hat to it's brilliance before you turn around and give it no hold on your life.

We are sharing this life with so many exceptionally different and fascinating people and things; why would we limit our knowledge because we are too afraid to learn?

A Time-Travelling Lunatic

It's not a state secret that I'm a very big fan of sci-fi and fantasy; and I honestly prefer watching Batman/Superman/Wolverine being anti-social while kicking some ass without breaking a sweat, than watching Horatio Caine play musical chairs with his sunglasses while choking on some lame one-liner during another montage-filled episode of any given CSI (especially the Miami one...I REALLY don't like that one!).

And as with anything that we choose to have in our lives, just because I say I like sci-fi doesn't mean that I will watch anything with lasers, aliens and superpowers in them (I've never liked Start Trek).

Some time ago I was re-watching Startgate SG1 (and ultimately Stargate Atlantis) and I realised that episodes with a certain, very specific, plot made me even more giddy than usual (yes, I used the word giddy...YOU try and say it and keep feeling down in the dumps!). Anyway, time-travel...I absolutely love watching shows that feature time-travel in some shape or form. But most of the shows I watch, only dedicate about one episode every two seasons to time-travel, which is in no way satisfactory to my needs. Five years ago, all of that changed for me.

I met The Doctor. Timelord. Lunatic. Comedian. Humanitarian. If you have not heard of The Doctor...go to Wikipedia (I'm seriously not going to try and educate you on the subject matter...it'll take forever!). Just know that this show first started in 1965 - 47 years of information will keep you busy for quite some time. The Doctor is (according to him) the last of his kind, over 900 years old, travels through time and space in a blue police box called the Tardis (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) and he does a lot of running...a LOT of running!

But I tried figuring out why I prefer time-travel to any other form of sci-fi, and you know what I found? It's not because of all the close-to-death adventures that lie waiting in another time, or the aliens you could meet if you travel to the year five-billion.

It's about seeing and experiencing cultures and people that time has forgotten. Incidentally this is also why I love stories of ghost-towns and abandoned buildings so much...the mystery. I want to know the story of what happened there, and WHY it happened.

So, no, I don't necessarily want to become a time-travelling vigilante brandishing guns, swords and lightsabers, but I love the idea of meeting lost civilizations during the time in history that they were still flourishing.

On the other hand, everything would happen out of order if you were to travel through time on a regular basis...it might get a little bit confusing. Maybe that's why The Doctor is a bit of a lunatic.