Learning By Exploration

What the drive is...

Feb 11, 2024

If you have wondered at any time what I mean when I say “Don’t forget to keep exploring” or you’ve read the About page and you haven’t quite understood what “Learning by Exploration” means, then let me explain.

When I started putting stuff out on my Blogger in December 2020, I was just looking for a way to share my ‘art’ with the world and probably inspire a few people too. But it was mainly about me. It lasted one year. In December 2021, I put out my last piece of content on Blogger and left indefinitely.

(I’ve decided to leave everything back there still on as a testament to where this all started. So you can check it out at iamtheoart.blogspot.com)

Fast forward to now and all that really has changed was clarity on the vision for all of this and maybe the branding too 😉.

Here’s a little about myself and the “big” vision for this blog.

My Life (so far)

My creative journey began in childhood; I was the kid who wanted to try everything, including the things I knew I wasn't exceptional at.

I read everything, novels "bigger than I was", novellas, magazines, newspapers, comics.
No book went through my school without going through my head (here's your long due shout-out Lantern Publishers, your books were incredible).

I remember reading whole devotionals like Guideposts and Gotta Have God at a stretch for the stories in them. I read Reader's Digest serials; the articles and four in one stories. Even read Dictionaries, (I'm not joking). I read scripture – the Bible and Apocrypha just for the stories regularly. As I grew and had online access, I read on Worldreader, read history on Wikipedia, read on Facebook. I basically read everything that had information to offer– and none of this was on the back of someone prompting me to.

I watched the news, I watched cartoons, I watched children videos as well, from Preschool Power to The Donut Man to Mother Goose. (Only the OGs know these)

I did sports, I used to be the guy to get picked last into a football team (I'm a little better now), I did sprints, even when I wasn't near the fastest in my class; the high jump, the long jump, I was everywhere– not the best in any of those (in my defense, I was competing against older guys).

I wrote short stories, I wrote poems, I drew pictures(amateur-level) and did crafts.

I experimented with Microsoft Office and other software packages, back from the days of Windows XP, making fake presentations in PowerPoint, trashy graphics in CorelDRAW and Publisher. I did "fake" photography, photo editing and graphic design on apps like Cymera back then – that was when I coined Theoart.
I was introduced to the programming world in late 2017 I think, and I self learnt HTML, CSS plus a little JavaScript till I found my purpose in design.

And now, I find my way around the numerous design software I use by this same spirit of exploration.

I have discovered that it is those little nuggets gleaned from multiple sources that stack up to make a big difference.

Exploring has shaped my disposition to learning, it shaped the way I wrote and still write, it shaped my worldview as a whole.

Now there's hardly a random conversation I wouldn't get into if I wanted to. I don't know everything of course, nobody can, and I am not a pro at every field, but I do have a great deal of knowledge across multiple fields.

The Problem

I've seen a lot of people ahead of me who had a similar journey, but I don't see it being replicated so often or so well anymore.

It makes make my heart quite heavy to see younger people who don't have a similar attitude.

I see a new generation that's extremely content with so little knowledge. A group of people who want the success without the journey; whose minds aren't wired to keep learning. A young group taking on nothing tasking and growing with nothing but Baby Shark. And humans who all reason the same way– in a straight line, no innovation.

The current educational system doesn't foster creativity either; elementary subjects have been unnecessarily split into more; less quality- more quantity. Syllabuses are including unrelated topics and neglecting the essential. We only stuff brains with the formulae and the theories and the laws- little to no backstories or practicals (even in uni). We teach 3-dimensional concepts in 2D.

These kids don't get what they need from home nor from school. Little wonder they don't find learning fun.

Way Forward

I want to encourage this explorative personality. I've seen and reaped its benefits, I'm still reaping them. I've never taken a creative writing class for example. My writing is all from what I've read and listened to and watched and of course practiced over and over.

I want you to encourage it too, but shouldn't you actually have “CREATIVITY” first?

Well, everyone has it. “Has it been sharpened?” is the question.

The truth is that all of us are born with a level of curiosity. But a lot of it gradually gets stripped off by people and situations especially on this end of the globe. You, reading this also probably wrote stories or plays or poems or did art too enthusiastically when you were younger, where's that now?

In a world where our creativity can be ripped away from us over time without us knowing it, we should not only take action towards preserving what we've got left but also actively work towards regaining whatever it is we seem to have lost.

Don't let the fear of failure hinder success. You won't learn to ride until you're no longer scared of falling.

Try something, if it doesn't work, you've learnt one way that doesn't work. It usually proves to be a better way to learn than being told what works and what doesn't from the beginning.

Encourage this mindset in other people, and use it too- that’s what I’m saying.