In this <4 minute voice memo, I ponder on how I learn about things. I realized that whenever I learn something, I’m generally unable to sustain interest in the foundational aspects of the technique, preferring to leap over to start creating things and figuring out my way around it.
It’s the equivalent of ignoring the instruction manual for your new IKEA shelf, and only returning to the manual after you’ve grappled - unsuccessfully - with a weird-looking wood thingy that won’t fit anywhere.
In my head, I see this form of learning as two threads running asynchronously (in theory, not in practise: in reality when you switch from thread to thread, one thread stalls): you learn enough to start executing, and when you’re stuck on executing, learn an even smaller, more purposeful bit of info to help you advance to the next execution.
In all thy gettings, get wisdom. I suspect this is the way of the autodidact, because in the absence of a curriculum, people will snap to the most interesting bits of the learning framework (and what is more exciting than doing things!?)
My real concern, of course, is that when you start like this, you eventually forget to return to a very vital foundational block, unwittingly doing long-term damage to your hopes of advancing forever. This is why I recommend that you keep a log of things you don’t know yet that, while currently not blockers, seem to be important to captains of your industry that you may as well understand them well enough to know if you need them.
I too keep similar notes. Some of them are things I know exactly nothing about, but seem vital to understand.
Learning never ends.
Voice Memo #001: Simplistic, Utilitarian Learning