December 14, 2020
When you were in grade school, you were probably told that you were there to learn the “three R’s”: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
While that may be true, there’s another important skill you learned there, whether you realized it or not.
Do you remember those “Connect the Dot” puzzles? The dots were numbered, and you were supposed to draw a line between the numbered dots, in order, and when you reached the end, you’d have drawn a hidden picture that was finally revealed. It was meant to be a fun way to review your numbers and counting.
But “connecting the dots” is more than just number practice for children. It’s how everyone — adults included — learn new things.
I’ll explain.
When you learn a new chunk of information, it’s helpful to visualize that new bit of information as a “dot” or a singular unit within your brain. When you’ve just learned this new bit of information, it just kind of sits there.
When you learn a second bit of new information that’s related to the first, then that becomes another “dot” or unit in your brain.
And once you understand the connection between them, imagine a line that forms between the two dots, connecting them.
Now that your brain has made that association, you’re less likely to forget either of those two new bits of info. It’s harder to forget two linked and associated pieces of information than a piece that isn’t connected to anything else in your brain.
This is why you often instantly forget the new things you learn when you first begin learning a new and complicated subject. The bits of information you take in are entirely new concepts, not linked to any other information you use in your daily life, and thus have very weak holds in your memory.
It’s not until you continue studying and, over time, gather a larger tapestry of information and begin to see how all the pieces fit together do you actually begin to retain the information. You’ve begun connecting the dots.
The easiest way to demonstrate this is when learning a foreign language.
Someone can tell you the word for “sit” in Spanish, and then five seconds later, you’ll totally forget it. Why? Because that word is a very isolated piece of information in your brain.
But if you repeat the word “sit” in Spanish every time you sit down in a chair, then you will connect that isolated dot into the web of knowledge that you use every day. Thus, you’re unlikely to ever forget it, just as you’ll never forget the English word for “sit.”
This concept of connecting dots is important not only because it’s how you learn and acquire new knowledge, but it’s also one major path to deconversion from your religion.
I, like most Christians, had the Bible “stored” in my brain as special book, separate and above from everything else I knew. Everything I read and studied within it was self-contained.
It wasn’t until I was older and began to realize that if the Bible was actually a reliable text, then it should fit into the greater tapestry of life and knowledge. My pastors always told me that it did, and I trusted them because they had supposedly studied it in their Seminary classes.
But then I began connecting more dots — the ones that were adjacent to the Bible, but I’d never allowed myself to look into — history, archaeology, science, etc.
What emerged was the picture that I’d never completed, to return to the analogy at the beginning of this article. It was a picture that revealed a greater understanding of what the Bible actually was and where it fit in the greater span of history, politics, religion, and government.
And revealing, of course, that it’s not a reliable text to base one’s entire life upon.
I point this out because you may have followed a similar path to deconversion — one where you simply woke up one day and sought to connect the dots that you’d missed or purposely ignored. That’s awesome.
We live in a vast world and universe. There are way more “dots” out there than can ever be acquired in a single lifetime. But that doesn’t mean there’s no point in connecting as many dots as possible.
As I’ve said before, your life should ultimately improve after your deconversion. You’ve seen firsthand how “connecting the dots” with new information has improved your life (even if your deconversion is/was difficult). In the end, you were better off knowing the truth.
The same can be said with other dots that have nothing to do with religion.
As they say, knowledge is power. It’s true. The more accurate information you have, the better equipped you are to navigate the world around you while maintaining your happiness and freedom.
So keep connecting those dots. Whenever you gain a new bit of information, see how it fits in with something you already know and have experienced. If you can connect it somewhere (and everything in our world and universe is ultimately connected) then you will have expanded your view of the great tapestry of life.