Table of Contents

• Introduction

• School skews your perception of learning

• Passion and Immersion

• Knowledge is poison, action is the antidote

• If you’re stuck, step back

• Experience more

• Conclusion

This piece is a companion piece to another post I had written, a week of learning to make a web app. It serves as the empirical side of this piece, putting myself into the shoes of a learner before I speak about it. Drawing parallels between them is left as an exercise for the reader.

Introduction

I wasn't comfortable writing this piece without first having put myself in the frame of a learner and then introspecting on my behaviour.

It had also been a long time since I was in the frame of a learner so any analysis would have lacked play-by-play analysis compared to if I was learning with the intention of reflecting. That said, the retrospection of learning while being naive to my inner state is useful.

As a brief summary, I taught myself to build a web app in a week using LLMs. In this case I had knowledge of the components to degrees of competency but fell short at putting it together.

It is not my intention to break down every feeling or explain each tendency that I’ve come to know about myself. Some of this magic is specific to the individual, but I can confidently say at times I did experience the coveted 'flow' state which is often sought after.

Below isn't necessarily how I enter the frame of learning, but rather things I've noticed over time to help me get there.

School skews your perception of learning

The first two decades of our lives are exclusively reserved for learning. From the early days of learning to walk, to writing a dissertation in university, we are constantly barraged with learning as we try to understand the world around us.

As students, 6 hours of our day is spent in structured lessons, and we spend the rest of our waking hours either studying or feeling like we should be studying. Our lives exist in the shadow of our studies.

However, that stops when you enter the workforce. Yes, learning does occur while working, but that’s mostly during working hours. Even then some of that time is not spent learning but actually doing your job…or chatting at the coffee machine.

As we settle into a routine, we can often fall out of touch with learning. Many of us would like to learn an instrument, and despite having it in our room, it’s very rare that you spend more than a few minutes even thinking about picking it up, let alone learning. The same applies to languages, sports, and making art.

More sinisterly, forgetting how to learn sets a dangerous precedent. Learning is how we navigate our lives, from changing jobs, to losing a family member, to moving to another country, not knowing how to learn (and adapt) is fatal.

Passion and Immersion

Learning can be defined as a function of passion and immersion.

Passion - Although interchangeable with drive, desire, and pressure, it is easiest to learn when it is something you want to learn, rather than something you have to learn. It may be something you think is interesting, something your friends are getting into, or the latest trend. Having interest is the fundamental driver.

Immersion - Being surrounded by and doing the thing you want to do is almost a no-brainer. But this extends past the time you dedicate to it, it can also become part of the time you spend reading, socialising, or browsing social media. If you make your interests part of what you do when you aren’t doing it, it remains on your mind.

These things are not mutually exclusive, and it is beneficial when both are leveraged in the pursuit of learning. At its best it represents a symbiotic relationship where immersion feeds the passion, and the passion encourages a more immersive environment.

At its worst, passion without immersion leads nowhere. If you wanted to learn something but take no steps towards it, you are bound where stand. Immersion without passion looks ignorance, you exist in an environment, but do not take any steps to develop your understanding of the surroundings.

In both scenarios even a drop of the other can create a virtuous cycle where one cultivates the other.

Knowledge is poison, action is the antidote

Cultivating knowledge is important. Any notable individual in their respective field has likely published theorems, proofs, essays, and art. Their information is distilled such that decades of insights can be awarded in a matter of moments. However, it is reductionist. Some things can only be learnt through action and experience. The sole pursuit of knowledge will leave your worse off than your peers who did not pursue knowledge but acted naively (with the intention of learning).

It is very easy to claim to know a lot about coding, carpentry, finance, or agriculture, but without being able to apply it, it is just knowledge. Application solidifies knowledge as expertise and confidence. Although confidence may be feigned through the anecdotes of others, it will leave you insecure when your knowledge is questioned.

Imagine attending an interview for a role where you have read up on the skills needed but have no practical experience. In a first-stage interview with HR who is likely not a subject matter expert you may be able to blag your way through. However, in a second-stage interview which tests your technical skills, you may find yourself caught out by an interviewer with vast expertise. Technical questions are such that you either know the answer or you don’t, and if you decide to feign confidence and answer wrongly you are the only one who will look stupid.

Having experience of the subject allows you to flip the script on a difficult question by falling back to your experience, “I carried out a similar piece of work where we did X and we leveraged Y to achieve Z”. Even if you end up with the wrong answer, a technically-sound interviewer will be able to make a judgement of your capabilities.

If you’re stuck, step back

This section may not be universally true, but it is anecdotally true.

When learning you will inevitably hit a wall, one that you cannot power through. In these cases. you should stop and go do something else: make some food, go for a walk, even doomscroll (it pains me to write that), just remove yourself for a while.

Often when you are stuck you need to give your brain time to develop the concepts learnt and let any problems ‘mature’ in your mind. When you revisit the same topic later, you may find yourself magically in possession of the solution.

Learning is a bit like lifting weights. After a workout, your muscles feel bigger due to increased circulation, but you probably aren’t stronger by a noticeable margin. It is only after time has passed (not to mentioned consistency with working out), do you notice the growth and progress made.

Experience more

Learning also occurs through experiences without the explicit lens of learning. This learning is not active, but rather driven by your subconscious.

Regularly sparring in boxing, jui jitsu, or another combat sport will make it easier to pick up any other combat sport as your body has been conditioned for maintaining balance, force exertion, and taking a beating. To a lesser extent it provides benefits for sports like football as you would have developed stamina and respiratory control more than someone who had never played a sport. Even the ability to make decisions under pressure is an invaluable skill when it comes to your work, this includes desk jobs.

Going to a museum, concert, flower market, or conference, even if you have never been before, and you have no intention of learning something from will still result in you learning something. You will subconsciously take in the environment, people’s mannerisms, the proper attire, and you will develop an understanding of how to conduct yourself.

Only through reflection will you realise that you have improved - This effect is exaggerated when the thing you do feels like play rather than work.

Conclusion

There is a lot more that I could have discussed here. And I could have continued listing the ideas that helped me to become a better learner, but a lot of these ideas relate to me as a person rather than a universal experience and for most people that wouldn't be useful.

I have also avoided discussions on neuroplasticity. I just don’t think they’re relevant to topic at hand.

All you need to do is do the thing that feels hard in moment, and chase that feeling. That’s all. It isn’t easy, and you will fail sometimes, but that’s all you need to do.