Nothing is more important than everything, sometimes.

There are many different ways for us to learn new things, perhaps nearly as many as there are new things for us to learn. Most of the time though, the methods we employ involve adding that new thing to our current collection of knowledge. We do this by wrapping what we already know around the edges of the new thing, so we can get a firm grip on it before exploring it to the point where we can fully make it our own.

We compare this new thing with all the the things we already know, with what we believe, what we think and what we fear. We apply our preconceived notions to it and based on the things we already know, we automatically begin to extrapolate things about this new thing that  "must" be true.

For things like grammar, vocabulary and mathematics, this is often perfectly acceptable. Things that we already have a foundation for, we can just stack the knew knowledge on top of the old. Often the new data follows a logical progression that can be calculated by what we already know.

There are times though, where what we already know is a hindrance, where it can impede and in fact completely prevent us from allowing something new to be learned. Sometimes we have to forget everything we know, in order to learn something new.

Have you ever seen one of those martial arts movies where a teacher is working with a student and they aren't getting anywhere? After awhile the the teacher says I can't teach you, you already know everything. He isn't saying that the student literally knows all that he has to teach. He is saying that he can't teach because what the student already knows keeps getting in the way.

The common analogy used has to do with a cup, where the cup is your brain. Imagine for a moment that I tell you to come to dinner and bring a cup so that I can fill it with the most delicious wine you have ever tasted. If you show up for dinner and you already have that cup filled with brandy, I can't fill your cup with wine, unless you pour out or drink the brandy. I have something wonderful for you, but you won't let me share it with you.

If you are learning a martial art, a new language, religion, philosophy or even just another person's point of view, anything that you don't already have a solid foundation for, all of your collected knowledge about things is useless.  And holding on to that knowledge will prevent you from learning about that thing as quickly and accurately as you would otherwise be able to.

There are times where your preconceived notions, your assumptions and your extrapolations are all going to be wrong, times where having a belief about something will taint the experience of actually learning it. Don't make comparisons between this thing and something else you already know. If it is a thing that you know nothing about, comparing it to something else that you do know about is bound to make you look stupid. Let the new thing be new. Experience it for the first time as a child explores their surroundings for the first time when they begin to crawl.

I am not suggesting that you literally erase from your mind all previous knowledge every time you want to learn something new. I am however saying that you need blank space for the new stuff to go and that you should clear that space ahead of time. Instead of wrapping what you know around the edges of the new knowledge, start with a blank area in your mind and let the new thing you are learning grow out until it is large enough to wrap around what you already know about everything else.

Make yourself part of the new thing rather than making the new thing part of yourself.