great piece tom! reading on whims was a standout for me as I try to follow this as much as possible. it is wonderful and freeing to know that one can pick up a book and drop it as soon as it bores you. "read what you love until you love to read" by @naval on twitter was a good tweet and i feel you just expanded on a bit.
This essay gets a very countercultural charm to it if you realize that lately "education" and "online courses" both melted into just another way of profitting from content-junkies at the interwebs. Every single content creator wants you to learn from THEM, ultimately, but most (if not all) have not stood the test of time as you mention here. Currently, as a law student (if I permit myself to be identified as such, for I don't really like the "law" part of it), we look to understand the principles of things before going in to the details of treatieses, manuals etc.
And developing a great skillset around critical thinking, whim-driven reading and better judgment, you really wont get past the copycat phase of your education. Hell, it might even let you expedient enough to finish your grad if you think about it hahahah
That’s the key isn’t it. The content creator and course provider discovers and repackages ideas from the past and stamps their own brand on them. Whereas if you look at what they do, and not what they say, then it is clear that their own process is one of curiosity and self-directed study. That's the lesson. I suspect course creators don’t themselves consume many or any courses.
And yes, the critical thinking aspect of law seems extremely useful especially in the contemporary world. Need to have a toolset to slice through the BS in life.
I stumbled upon "The Intellectual Life" by Sertillages thanks to Liberty's Highlights. It's very good and reminded me a lot of Charlie Munger and PCA. Finding people like Feynman who were genuinely excited not only to learn but share what they learned has helped me go down the path of neverending curiosity.
It’s strange how much of adult life can strangle the curiosity out of you. Because virtually all children have it in spades. As do all truly great thinkers, scientists, investors, artists and so on. It seems to be the one common thread that unites them all. And all we have to do to increase it in ourselves is to to choose to nurture it.
You know what, you talking about teachers has reignited my intense dislike of them.
It's important for me to be able to articulate what I like and dislike and its frustrating to voice criticism only to be told "I hate everything" or "I spend too much time thinking".
What I am saying is that it's good to know there are people out there who consider things further than the surface.
You're a beacon Thomas and it's good to have you lighting up the dark.
Hey Kieran, great to here from you mate. Without being too soppy and sentimental, you are one of the few who I have really missed from my twitter days.
Hope all is well with you.
Yeah, I think part of the British and Irish problem is that the system, so to speak, has a way of transforming legitimate problems and grievances into more vague and generalised grumbling. But I guess that’s what happens when you aren’t taught critical thinking skills. Hence the need to be an autodidact and figure out how to bulldoze the Wall in the Head down yourself, which of course is easier said than done.
Thank you, Tom. It's a great topic I've been thinking about a lot recently, and even published an essay about my love for random facts, curiosity and nuggets of knowledge :D
> "You are either an autodidact or you are not"
This is very true. I think a true autodidact never treats a process of reading, playing with ideas, etc. as learning. 'I should learn something today. I am an autodidact, right?' is not how the autodidact approaches it. The learning comes organically as a result of curiosity, a whim, as you mentioned. They learn for the sake of intellectual joy, finding pleasure in thought and so forth. It shouldn't feel like work or a necessity. That's the key I believe. Autodidacts are curious explorers in the first place. They can easily pick up a new topic and abandon it at any time.
I agree, so I suppose what I mean to do when I encourage people to be autodidacts is more to encourage people of that temperament to give themselves *permission* to be this way. And not to see yourself as a weirdo or somehow wrong for pursuing interests and obsessions for their own sake.
So in this sense today’s essays is very much an extension of last times Wall In The Head essay.
Cheers, John, always great to get your insight here.
Yes, definitely, I agree. I liked how you put it and like how it beautifully works together with the previous essay. I always encourage people (my younger brothers, for example) to learn and do what they feel is right, what they like, not what they told is right, not even what I think is right. The advice I give might be helpful but learning should feel natural. It could be whimsical and feel weird or pointless at the moment, but I believe whims and playing with knowledge is what often only works :D After all, we are born autodidacts, all children are curious learners, but sadly, many of us lose it (e.g. in school, as you wrote), and that's the wall we should break through.
Great comment. The problem with a lot of advice is it comes from a place of ego or a need to manufacture your own story of success (‘Here’s what I did and so you should do it too’) or in hoping to avoid this it becomes generic to the point of redundancy (‘work hard’ etc)
So the solution, and the truth is to gain self-understanding (and self-acceptance) and then the and leverage that and go all in on that. The genius is the one most like himself, as Thelonious said. The problem with this advice, though, is that it is not very ‘sticky’ and doesn’t win you internet points which is the reason why 99% of people ‘create content’ in the first place.
But I guess I’ll keep going anyway for the few who get it. That’s all you can really do I think.
Have you found it difficult to make time for these pursuits as an adult in the “real world”? I find it hard enough as a student to truly drink deeply; for every book you read there are 5 more, and all of those books are ones that of course should be read 30 different times. It’s great but often overwhelming.
This isn’t even to mention the time spent in work and all the other necessities of life; it can often lead to an anxious FOMO to use your leisure as best as possible. But of course, that spoils the whole point. Any advice for learning to just chill out?
That’s a great question. If I were a hack and a shill I would say that there are plenty of people all trying to figure out how to chill out more in my private discord groups, subscribe for access etc etc. Which is true, as far as it goes, but that’s not the way I want to do things.
Essentially I think self-education is about self-knowledge and with self-knowledge comes an understanding of both your limitations and what you also know in your heart are subjects that you are not truly drawn to, but feel like you should.
Over time, then, you start to let such things go and accept you will never get around to them and don’t truly *want* to pursue them anyway.
So With being an autodidactic, things both narrow down and broaden over time (it’s hard to explain) and you increasingly only follow your interests and leave all the nonsense to one side. So the advice regarding learning to chill out is to try and let go of the idea of keeping up and being in the know with everything current and replace that with what you are naturally drawn to. Which comes from actual solitude and unmediated introspection.
It takes some courage, especially as the world is trying to push you towards immediacy and FOMO and all the rest of it. The key, as far as I can tell, is to unplug more and more and to consume a lot less content.
I hope that brings some ideas. It’s something I wrestle with myself and I think all of these essays are an attempt to look at this idea.
Thanks, Mauro. Glad it helped. Oftentimes I feel like I ramble in the comments, but it can sometimes be through spouting off that a little bit of insight leaks out. Such is the joy of communicating with peers.
great piece tom! reading on whims was a standout for me as I try to follow this as much as possible. it is wonderful and freeing to know that one can pick up a book and drop it as soon as it bores you. "read what you love until you love to read" by @naval on twitter was a good tweet and i feel you just expanded on a bit.
Thanks Ashish. And yes I agree with Naval there, if reading is a chore you’re doing it wrong IMO...
This essay gets a very countercultural charm to it if you realize that lately "education" and "online courses" both melted into just another way of profitting from content-junkies at the interwebs. Every single content creator wants you to learn from THEM, ultimately, but most (if not all) have not stood the test of time as you mention here. Currently, as a law student (if I permit myself to be identified as such, for I don't really like the "law" part of it), we look to understand the principles of things before going in to the details of treatieses, manuals etc.
And developing a great skillset around critical thinking, whim-driven reading and better judgment, you really wont get past the copycat phase of your education. Hell, it might even let you expedient enough to finish your grad if you think about it hahahah
That’s the key isn’t it. The content creator and course provider discovers and repackages ideas from the past and stamps their own brand on them. Whereas if you look at what they do, and not what they say, then it is clear that their own process is one of curiosity and self-directed study. That's the lesson. I suspect course creators don’t themselves consume many or any courses.
And yes, the critical thinking aspect of law seems extremely useful especially in the contemporary world. Need to have a toolset to slice through the BS in life.
Thanks Mauro.
I stumbled upon "The Intellectual Life" by Sertillages thanks to Liberty's Highlights. It's very good and reminded me a lot of Charlie Munger and PCA. Finding people like Feynman who were genuinely excited not only to learn but share what they learned has helped me go down the path of neverending curiosity.
It’s strange how much of adult life can strangle the curiosity out of you. Because virtually all children have it in spades. As do all truly great thinkers, scientists, investors, artists and so on. It seems to be the one common thread that unites them all. And all we have to do to increase it in ourselves is to to choose to nurture it.
Thanks, Adam.
Thank you Thomas for this.
I think I need to reignite my curiosity.
You know what, you talking about teachers has reignited my intense dislike of them.
It's important for me to be able to articulate what I like and dislike and its frustrating to voice criticism only to be told "I hate everything" or "I spend too much time thinking".
What I am saying is that it's good to know there are people out there who consider things further than the surface.
You're a beacon Thomas and it's good to have you lighting up the dark.
(I need to read more of the good)
Hey Kieran, great to here from you mate. Without being too soppy and sentimental, you are one of the few who I have really missed from my twitter days.
Hope all is well with you.
Yeah, I think part of the British and Irish problem is that the system, so to speak, has a way of transforming legitimate problems and grievances into more vague and generalised grumbling. But I guess that’s what happens when you aren’t taught critical thinking skills. Hence the need to be an autodidact and figure out how to bulldoze the Wall in the Head down yourself, which of course is easier said than done.
But I guess that’s why we’re all here.
Cheers,
Tom.
Thank you, Tom. It's a great topic I've been thinking about a lot recently, and even published an essay about my love for random facts, curiosity and nuggets of knowledge :D
> "You are either an autodidact or you are not"
This is very true. I think a true autodidact never treats a process of reading, playing with ideas, etc. as learning. 'I should learn something today. I am an autodidact, right?' is not how the autodidact approaches it. The learning comes organically as a result of curiosity, a whim, as you mentioned. They learn for the sake of intellectual joy, finding pleasure in thought and so forth. It shouldn't feel like work or a necessity. That's the key I believe. Autodidacts are curious explorers in the first place. They can easily pick up a new topic and abandon it at any time.
I agree, so I suppose what I mean to do when I encourage people to be autodidacts is more to encourage people of that temperament to give themselves *permission* to be this way. And not to see yourself as a weirdo or somehow wrong for pursuing interests and obsessions for their own sake.
So in this sense today’s essays is very much an extension of last times Wall In The Head essay.
Cheers, John, always great to get your insight here.
Yes, definitely, I agree. I liked how you put it and like how it beautifully works together with the previous essay. I always encourage people (my younger brothers, for example) to learn and do what they feel is right, what they like, not what they told is right, not even what I think is right. The advice I give might be helpful but learning should feel natural. It could be whimsical and feel weird or pointless at the moment, but I believe whims and playing with knowledge is what often only works :D After all, we are born autodidacts, all children are curious learners, but sadly, many of us lose it (e.g. in school, as you wrote), and that's the wall we should break through.
Great comment. The problem with a lot of advice is it comes from a place of ego or a need to manufacture your own story of success (‘Here’s what I did and so you should do it too’) or in hoping to avoid this it becomes generic to the point of redundancy (‘work hard’ etc)
So the solution, and the truth is to gain self-understanding (and self-acceptance) and then the and leverage that and go all in on that. The genius is the one most like himself, as Thelonious said. The problem with this advice, though, is that it is not very ‘sticky’ and doesn’t win you internet points which is the reason why 99% of people ‘create content’ in the first place.
But I guess I’ll keep going anyway for the few who get it. That’s all you can really do I think.
Tom,
Have you found it difficult to make time for these pursuits as an adult in the “real world”? I find it hard enough as a student to truly drink deeply; for every book you read there are 5 more, and all of those books are ones that of course should be read 30 different times. It’s great but often overwhelming.
This isn’t even to mention the time spent in work and all the other necessities of life; it can often lead to an anxious FOMO to use your leisure as best as possible. But of course, that spoils the whole point. Any advice for learning to just chill out?
That’s a great question. If I were a hack and a shill I would say that there are plenty of people all trying to figure out how to chill out more in my private discord groups, subscribe for access etc etc. Which is true, as far as it goes, but that’s not the way I want to do things.
Essentially I think self-education is about self-knowledge and with self-knowledge comes an understanding of both your limitations and what you also know in your heart are subjects that you are not truly drawn to, but feel like you should.
Over time, then, you start to let such things go and accept you will never get around to them and don’t truly *want* to pursue them anyway.
So With being an autodidactic, things both narrow down and broaden over time (it’s hard to explain) and you increasingly only follow your interests and leave all the nonsense to one side. So the advice regarding learning to chill out is to try and let go of the idea of keeping up and being in the know with everything current and replace that with what you are naturally drawn to. Which comes from actual solitude and unmediated introspection.
It takes some courage, especially as the world is trying to push you towards immediacy and FOMO and all the rest of it. The key, as far as I can tell, is to unplug more and more and to consume a lot less content.
I hope that brings some ideas. It’s something I wrestle with myself and I think all of these essays are an attempt to look at this idea.
Cheers,
Tom.
that's a really well explained perspective, thank you Tom
Thanks, Mauro. Glad it helped. Oftentimes I feel like I ramble in the comments, but it can sometimes be through spouting off that a little bit of insight leaks out. Such is the joy of communicating with peers.