The Quest for Personal Bandwidth: Fortress of Growth

Whether you are two or twenty-two the places that you travel to mentally, the journeys of growth you traverse are well tread. Each building off of one another until a grid of signals and memories, junctions buzzing, encapsulate your central core, the base of operations, your brain. Stimuli steering your responses, drive and motivation entrenching into your psyche, uncertainty and eagerness balancing your need to discover and to play it safe. Bandwidth expanding every moment to integrate more data and faster processing speed. A constant quest to gather, pillage and slay the dragon in order to defend your beliefs. Building the castle of knowledge one brick at a time, assembly required: turret, draw-bridge and moat. When your guard is defense ready, you feel secure and fortified but when you are under siege your, parapet challenged, you only have two options: retreat and barricade or resist and re-position your garrison. If you safeguard your beliefs and hold at bay your enemies, ignorance and narrow-mindedness, you will be undefeated. This in turn, broadens your stockade and replenishes your arsenal and weaponry for learning.

There are necessary parts of your bandwidth: belonging, confidence, resilience, determination and patience. For without even one of these your palisade begins to falter. You begin to lose sight of your fortress of prior knowledge, skills of deduction and faith of reasoning and intuition. If you let slip from memory your successes and your struggles you reduce your bandwidth. In order to maintain your impulse to learn, impetus to make connections and inclination to problem-solve you must strengthen the signal and transmission of new input. You have to continually feed the beast. At times it is hungry, high frequency surges, while others it is satiated moving through a low frequency lull. Yet, constant cultivation is required. Even if the draw-bridge is raised, the arrows of complacency are airborne and ready to hit their target. The catapults always at the ready to launch projectiles of negativity and fear in your direction. Sentinels swiping them aside as you traverse the encampment of temptation and distraction.

You become overwhelmed by constant high frequency flinches, pausing your train of thought. You succumb to automated advances, social media, consumed with digital eagerness and technological temptations. They pull on you, lure you, trap you. The castle becomes overrun, bombarded with infantry. Horseman trample concentration. Paladin, lock you away from your focus, making you forget your quest. You take a bite, small and seemingly innocuous, yet purposefully perilous because it takes you off course and weakens your citadel. Even the most fundamental of alterations causes the big picture to become blurry and out of focus. A brewing storm slowing your expedition. Trapping you in the quagmire. Your crusade halted by your enemy. The dragon rears its villainous head, fire, breath, heat, no escape. Bites become bytes. Bandwidth lessened, defenses weakened, pursuit becomes pursued. Your flag of territory vastness is lowered, turret occupied by bandits. You succumb, useless rumination ensues. 

Personal learning often becomes intertwined with social influence. Bandwidth no longer strong and focused. It becomes narrow and sparse. Living deliberately is your greatest defense. Having the courage to let it all go because a personal learning bandwidth is not reliant on technology, know-how or even winning the battle. It is determined by the energy you feed into your knowledge vessel, the mindset to grow and the balance of independent thought. Input from those you align yourself with and quiet contemplation the surges that push you forward. For without a strategic game plan, fore-thought and a tactical map your rampart will remain unprotected and under attack. But, with reflection, intention, awareness and mindful determination any plague upon your stronghold of learning will be conquered. Your bandwidth will increase and your quest will be enchanted, spell-binding and mythical. A round table, an epic battle, a magical realm where you are the hero.