Why Learning Begins With Presence.

Here's a Guest Fieldnote from Camilla, friend of Sari, MindUnwired and Piilo, exploring and thinking about how we learn best.

Introduction: The Age of Information Overload

We live in a time of massive information expansion. In fact, we’ve already had all the information we’d need to solve the world’s most complex problems — years ago.

And yet, here we are — overwhelmed.

Technology and AI have made this problem more visible than ever. AI has not only accelerated the amount of information available, but also revealed how hard it is to detect what actually matters.

We live in constant cognitive overload. There’s so much information coming from all directions that our brains are already aching.

We need to learn how to regulate cognitive overload.

Information ≠ Learning

If information isn’t the answer to all our problems — what is?

We humans don’t learn by collecting data. We learn by doing. We gather data, apply it in our environment, collect feedback, and reconstruct the data based on that feedback.

No matter how much information we accumulate, meaningful learning only happens when we engage.

The Power of Presence

Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens in context. It unfolds through constant feedback loops — feedback from other people, our environment, and ourselves.

Feedback is the consequence that follows our actions — not just reactions from people, but also the broader consequences in the environment. Our own emotions, a friend's silence, a shift in atmosphere, or even climate change — all are forms of feedback.

Feedback reaches us through words, silences, emotions, micro-expressions — and the world pushing back. Subtle signals that help us understand cause and effect.

So: learning requires feedback. And receiving that feedback requires presence.

We need space in our minds to even notice it.That’s not possible when our mind — or our phone, or our surroundings — is constantly buzzing.

We exist in relation. And we learn through connection — by being present.

Closing Thoughts: Make Space for Deep Learning

What if today you didn’t seek more information?

What if you made space for being truly present?

What if you paused, put your phone away for a while?

Out of sight, out of mind.

Just sat quietly in your environment and noticed what’s happening around you?

What would you notice? What would you learn?

What could become easier, lighter? What would have less friction?

Learning doesn’t begin with gathering all the information of the world, and being constantly available.

It begins with being present.

Photo credit: Anna Wadowska