Pavlov's Dog

Pavlov.
I feel a sour, tingly taste in my mouth.
My hand reaches out to lick the lemonade powder.

An experiment conducted in my AP Psychology class has stayed with me for the past seven years. The brain is plastic-it learns and unlearns easily. But I haven't unlearned that the utterance of Pavlov does not imply the presence of lemonade powder. As a matter of fact, I haven't unlearned a lot of things. Learning is easy, but what about unlearning?

Learning is voluntary, but one has no control over unlearning. At this point I feel obliged to point out that there is a difference between unlearning and forgetting. Facts can be forgotten, but skills have to be unlearned. I can't forget how to ice-skate, but I can unlearn it with the lack of practice and by merely changing my body proportions so that the initial calculations of force and velocity no longer hold true.

Now that we have the difference down, I can get to the point. In the last twenty three years I learned more than I have unlearned, hopefully. If this wasn't true, it would just be sad. However, there are several things I wish I could unlearn. Not because these skills are unnecessary, but the thrill that comes with learning these for the first time is priceless. Also, the first execution of some of these skills deserved more excellence. So, I'd want to unlearn some of these skills just to learn them again.

I wish I could unlearn how to ride a bike.
I realize it is practically impossible to learn this when you are no longer a teenager and when the fear of falling has amplified. Learning how to ride a bike was a huge ordeal for me. My sister taught herself and mastered this art as a seven year old. When I turned seven, I got a bike with training wheels; They stayed on until I was thirteen. My sister decided to teach me initially and this left me with a giant bruise on my cheek bone. Learning how to ride a bike became a memorable bonding experience, because everyone(my cousins, my parents, my friends) contributed to bits and pieces that enabled me to cruise comfortably once the training wheels were off. Someone taught me to stop, someone else to turn and yet another person encouraged me to get back on the bike if I fell. Without any of these, riding a bike would become difficult. Yes, sometimes I want those training wheels back on so SOMEONE ELSE can tell me how to turn, how to stop or how to get back up. Being independent is a game of trial-and-error.

I wish I could unlearn how to dance.
I feel like one style of dance influences the performance of another style. This might be the beauty of the art, but it is also a limitation. I don't think I can ever perform an act without displaying a hint of garba in it. The clap, the snap or the weird skip will find its way into my routine one way or the other. So every time I prepare myself to learn a different style of dancing, I want to unlearn the previous styles to gain an authentic experience.

I wish I could unlearn Arabic.
Languages are best learned as a child. However, I learned how to read and write, but not how to understand it. My eleven years in Dubai seem unaccounted for with this gap between understanding the language and knowing the script. If I unlearned the script, perhaps I would have more motivation to learn the language as a whole.

I wish I could unlearn how to love.
Love eh? Weird and serious concept. For most of my life I claimed I don't really know what this (emotion) means and maybe I still don't. But for now, I want to unlearn what I believe is love. Yes, I love my family. Yes, I love my friends. I also love some other people who are not family and no longer friends. Love might be beautiful, but it is my intracranial self stimulation. It is a drug that one chooses over the needed supplements of life. More or less this ruins your life as you slave through to achieve someone else's expectations, ambitions and dreams and realize that while doing so, you lost yourself. Because really, where does loving yourself fall in when you have to share your love among so many other people? This is one skill I wish to unlearn never to re-learn.

Pavlov.
The hand reaches out into emptiness.
The sour, tingly craving remains.