A Simple Way to Expand Your Mind

May 7

The idea of expanding my mind is something that I find endlessly fascinating. It’s a source of optimism for me. There must be more to life.

I think for a lot of people, that word choice – “mind expanding” – brings imagery of psychedelics or spiritual escapades. The matrix. Alternate or parallel worlds.

Which are all amazing subjects worthy of many hours of conversation and debate! However, it can sometimes be difficult to translate these ideas into daily life.

I’d like to propose a very concrete method of mind-expansion that’s simple. In fact, anyone can do it in their living room: learn a new language.

This is not a groundbreaking idea by any stretch, and yet I rarely ever hear people speak about why this is such a powerful thing to do. It’s impossible to know what it’s really like if you’ve never done it before.

Learning a foreign language isn’t just learning a foreign set of words to replace the ones you already know. It’s learning a new way to think. A new way to both see and interface with the world.

Language is one of our primary forms of communication, and is steeped and intertwined with tradition, history and politics. When you learn a new language, you’re gaining access to all kinds of things that you only have a vague, simplified understanding of. Or better yet, that you didn’t even know existed.

No analogy I’ve ever tried to use to convey my feelings about this has ever come close to expressing what this is like.

All I can say is that I have known two versions of France (my current home) – the one before I spoke French and the one after it. Living here does often feel like living in an alternate universe as compared to the US. Almost everything is different in some way. The size and shape of the roads, what breakfast looks like, the sounds people make and the ways they gesticulate.

People will try to explain to you what other cultures are like. There are many translation services out there now. It’s just not the same. Learning a language expands your mind.