Do Not Learn

India is struggling to come out of the Xerox era in this information age. Today, India needs innovation - original one, not the Xeroxed creativity. But, surprisingly poor and deprived Indians, starved of publicity, are still feeling fascinated with minor growth and success. People with high resources and caliber are finding themselves contented with meager achievements. All these self inflicted contentment are keeping individuals all across the board to be satisfied with mediocrity. People remain far behind from achieving excellence. There may be many reasons for this but in existing scenario; I would like to discuss the Xeroxed sense of learning which are so ridiculous.
Who says learning is important? Gone are the days when learning was the only means to achieve confidence and satisfaction in life. In the 20th century, when we have material of over twenty centuries to learn, it is almost ridiculous to presume that anybody would be able to learn all this. Invariably as you learn, it becomes clear how little you know. When learning is not giving us confidence, then we are forced to think of an alternative. More learning is making you more bare and exposed. More learning is making you under-confident. More learning demands further learning. Learning is not at all the solution. If we just try to analyze the situation emerging out of learning, we shall observe that it is unlearning, which we are supposed to do for a comfortable situation.
A totally illiterate person has a terrific feeling that he knows everything. The person from a village or town with less or negligible knowledge appears very confident from the outside. It is very difficult even to convince the person about the utilities and advantages of education. That’s why in a few cases, we find difficulties in educating. That’s how a small child is sent to school. Children from an early age are trained to go to school on time. They are taught from the beginning to read and write various subjects. They are trained to be disciplined from the beginning. They are moulded from an early age. If someone does not get educated at an early age, it becomes very difficult to educate the person at a later age. He remains either less or marginally educated. He always has the illusion that he can live a better and successful life without bookish knowledge. These confusions prevail in almost all negligible or less educated people. The concept of ‘Do not Learn’ may not be applicable to such a person. The concept of ‘Do not Learn’ can be applied only to the person who is sufficiently educated. The concept can be applied to a growing person. The concept can be applied for growing or changing society and organizations. The concept can be used for those who want to achieve a developed status. The concept can be exploited for a sharp and exponential growth from the existing status. These growing individuals or institutions need ‘Do not Learn’.
Once you start learning things, you find that there is an endless list. Today, the subjects have become so vast that it takes years to finish the syllabus in one area of activity. A typical example is the study of medicine. You start seriously studying for approximately one and a half years for admission to medical college during or after finishing 10+2 schooling, then you take five years to graduate, one-year of internship, three years for post graduation, a few years for senior fellowship, then further research on a specialization and so on. It is a long list. As you keep acquiring this education, you keep feeling that you know less. This is the typical paradox of learning. Similar kind of learning is required in other fields. Take the example of information technology. Today, children are taught computers from the kindergarten itself. At any time, the education on information technology is never complete. A person can keep acquiring degrees and continue doing courses, but it will never end. Every year, there are plenty of changes. There are new subjects, new hardware, new software; new areas of activities keep emerging. You have to keep learning or continue refreshing. The learning never ends. On the contrary, it keeps increasing.
Can you ever meet your learning instincts? I feel a normal person with a normal intellect will never be able to achieve even a part of her learning desires in the 21st century. It is very difficult to define and elaborate learning needs. It is almost impossible to define the road map of learning for a child. There are a few very typical examples in society, which forces us to think about the learning needs of human beings. It is very interesting to learn a little bit about the learning instincts of some famous personalities, most of us are aware of.

Sonia Gandhi, the third powerful woman of the world in 2005 as per Time magazine,
Rabri Devi, Former Chief Minister of Bihar, India,
Bismillah Khan, famous Shehnai Vadak, Bharat Ratna Awardee,
Gyani Zail Singh, Ex-President of India,
Mother Teresa, famous Nobel Peace Laureate,
Lata Mangeshkar, famous singer, Bharat Ratna Awardee,
Zakir Hussain, renowned tabla player

It is very difficult to define the learning needs of life. There is no end to learning. On one side we have the above examples with us and on the other hand, I quote the learning instincts of a normal person. Punchsheel was very hardworking and sincere student. Because of some family pressures, he joined for the job in 1985 at the lowest rank (with the minimum qualification of matriculation) after completion of his graduation. Subsequently, while in job, he did his Master of Arts (MA) in English in 1988 from Meerut University. He did his MA in Public Administrations in 1992 from Rajasthan University. He got a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English (PGDTE) in 1995 from the Central Institute of English and Foreign Languages, Hyderabad. He did a Graduate Diploma in Material Management (GDIMM) in 1999 from the Indian Institute of Material Management, Bangalore. He continued working in the same organization. After all these qualifications, he now feels that he is lacking in computer education so he has started doing computer courses starting from the Basic Computer course from IGNOU, New Delhi. Thanks to the IT development of the last few decades, the gentleman will never be able to quench his thirst for learning. In spite of all this, he continues doing the same work for the last twenty years, even in the year 2005. His decisions impact hardly a few of his co-workers. His knowledge and sincerity of effort are the privilege of a few people and that too in a small remote place of a developing country. Can learning by this individual benefit society? In this world of Vashistha Narayana Singh of Basantpur, is it surprising to find the wastage of knowledge and learning? Individual efforts go haywire in the absence of a sound unlearning system. Puncsheel is not an exceptional individual in the developing world. There may be lakhs among the billions in the developing world going down the drain; I call it the learning drain. Knowledge and qualifications remain as cheap as the developing human.
Is there a road map of learning? Or shall we prepare a road map for unlearning? Once a person understands the dilemmas, it is easily agreed that there is no need to learn until there is clarity of the learning requirements in life. However, before somebody thinks of learning, it must be clear to the individual that there is absolutely no advantage of learning things, unless the person has undergone a systematic unlearning process. What happened to Dr Vashitha Narayana Singh whose research paper is being used as study material in Washington? He is compelled to live in the remote village of Ara, India, where electricity, water, road or even minimum medical facilities are not available. His heart wrench clinched to nationality is not allowing him to unlearn the necessary things and this result in an absence of the basic necessities in his life. Mind boggling contradictions prevail. In the course of our lives with the tremendous changes of environment and situations, unlearning needs have arisen significantly. The graphs of unlearning and learning need are to be continuously updated to face different situations and occurrences in this Super Dynamic Era.
In the midst of the Xerox environment, it is important that wise people keep themselves away from copying. Newspapers, Medias and all the medium of mass communication except internet, blogs and some modern communication systems, are just not aware about the Xerox trend. Such trend is not good for continuous desired growth. Wise people are advised not to learn irrelevant and ridiculous things.