Navigating self learning

Navigation – its self-learning’s hardest unending task. It has multiple demands. Knowing where you are in your learning. Figuring out how to reach a place of knowledge and ability. While having confidence in the destination you picked. Its a discipline on its own. With practice I’ll get less worse at it.

My usual experience is the sensation of getting to a peak. From where the dim vastness of my ignorance stretches to the unfathomable horizon. It is a perspective I learned to accept without getting dispirited.

What keeps me focused is the task of assessing what I’m learning. Passing a test doesn’t cut it. What matters is developing an ability to do something I couldn’t do before. Then iterating to refine what I can do to do it better.

Success has one fragile compass. A hard-won sense of confidence in my competence. Which can die fast without regular focused practice. The thrill of doing something better than I did it before is a powerful motivator.

Curiosity is its enemy. It feeds on the dread in staying within a familiar puddle of competence. The new has its seductions. Strongest is the prospect of expanding existing abilities. Before you know it another journey begins.

After the thrill of going forth comes the trudge. A fumble through the fog in a new field. The stumbles over the same stupid mistakes. Slipping and sliding trying to grasp new concepts. In such dips, you have to make choices with limited information and infinite ignorance. Where are you going? Is the destination worth it? Does it exist? You have to make hard-headed choices about where you sink your time. It turns walking away into bravery.

The pursuit of curiosity risks leaving you the perpetual amateur. People think you are odd (‘bookish’) when you spew an esoteric remark at someone’s dinner. What other choice is there? Poison yourself with booze, bites and argue over cricket?

Charting my own self learning is one of the best things I ever did.