I once learned that there are four classifications for knowledge, and how humans acquire it. The first is empirical and this means learning through experience. Expert is another, which means learning something from an expert source like a Dr. or specialist. A third is Ethical, where there is no black or white answer, so you draw from your cultural-social nurturing to learn something. The last one is Epiphany, and if these types of learning were on a slide scale for effective learning, I would put this one last.

There are many things I think I learn from epiphany, but I feel that this is the least reliable source for learning, and yet somehow perhaps the most deeply felt. Epiphany resonates to a person’s belief system, not just their memory bank of experiences. Although a person may rely on their memories to form their reality, they act out on the views epiphanies have given them.

Epiphany means learning something from a sudden intuitive insight.

Basically, this means a person makes an assumption, “jumps” (think of the mind suddenly connecting previously unrelated thoughts) to a conclusion, and applies a personal set of connections to a circumstance. For example, seeing a sunset and remembering to appreciate friends. Sometimes the distance between two or more connections is more probable or less scattered, but this means that a person has to have a lot of self conviction to believe themself. In this case, you are teaching yourself something, and you have to rely on your intuitions. 

However, I am consumed by self-doubt; even right now, should I finish this sentence, or go break some glass in the woods? Instead of, finishing this sentence is like finishing a thought, etc. The opposite of epiphany: dissociating facts. Or perhaps, (as in the case of love, whose opposite is not hate but apathy,) epiphany’s opposite may be ingorance. Inactivity. 

My mind doubts, it breaks things apart and does not learn they are true. But you cannot not do something. What is my mind doing?