I am angry at the fact I must die, if for no other reason than it cuts short the time I have to learn all the things I wish to learn. Because not even infinity would be long enough.
Imbibing new knowledge and skills is my favourite pastime. I’m not able to form a sentence that adequately justifies this to you, it is just something I know to be true. It’s enormously fun. Every new tidbit of information mixes in with what I already know, changes the composition of my thoughts, reformats my library, marks out new annotations, and establishes patterns where before none existed. Lights go off in unexpected places, a million new questions are uncovered and the quest to answer them brings about more. The cycle repeats. It tickles my brain.
The only thing we can ever truly own is the contents of our own minds. Memories, knowledge, skills. They are the key to your agency and are your path forward. A life fully lived.
I remember vividly since a very young age my father urging me to always ask questions. Never mind the adults who grew tired of it. And so I began to respond to everything with “Why?”. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped.
Align yourself–your sense of identity and pride–with being a learner. Don’t think of yourself simply as being skilled at basketball, statistics or photography, no matter how expansive and impressive that list. To be a learner has infinitely higher potential, because it allows you to always add to the list. To be a learner is to be comfortable with never being done. Never qualified, never finished.
If learning gives you a light buzz, then learning how to learn is like smoking crack. Once you learn how you think, and you learn how to do it better, you can learn how to learn how to learn. You’re unstoppable. We’ve all experienced a class ruined by a crappy teacher lacking curiosity. Don’t sabotage yourself by being your own crappy teacher.
I began school at age four. The school wanted me to wait until I was five–as is the preferred starting age–but my parents insisted. After all, I was already teaching myself how to read, and they were already tired of answering questions. Since then, I haven’t stopped studying. I mean in the formal sense, I’ve spent my whole life enrolled in some form of education that results in a certificate of qualification at the end. But this is not why I’ve done it, nor is this what I mean by learning. See, I’ve met a lot of people who claim to be studying, while in fact they’re simply smoking weed within a few kilometres of a university campus somewhere. Studying is a skill set applied to pass exams-no more and no less. If I’ve learned anything in my umpteen years of formal education, it’s how to cram a textbook of information into my brain in less than 72 hours.
Studying is not learning.
In my time spent “studying”, the greatest joy has come from all the learning I do in my free time. Read books, listen to podcasts, indulge in rabbit holes, befriend people from alien cultures, learn to listen. Constantly re-evaluate your opinions, introspect. Don’t stop asking questions. Ask them of yourself, of others. Ask why. You are never done. As soon as you think you are done learning, you are wrong, or you’re dead, or both.
I sympathise with those whose love of learning–which I believe to be innate in all of us–was stifled by their schooling. Being forced to memorise specific facts, which are often irrelevant to the student’s interests or life, often by uncompassionate, uninspired teachers, and then regurgitate these facts onto paper in exchange for a good grade and a pat on the back, well, it’s dehumanising, counter-productive, and does little to inspire a true love for learning. I think myself lucky that my love of learning was strong enough to overcome this. I’ve received good grades and bad grades, but I learned to always be my own judge. If I was satisfied with my understanding of the topic, then I was happy. If I felt I wanted to know more, then I’d go and find more. My ability to perfectly answer exam questions was not a priority.
At some young age I became aware that I thought differently to others, and that they thought differently to each other too. This is called ‘theory of mind’, and it is a developmental steppingstone that demarcates intelligent species. Very rapidly, in primary school, it becomes clear who are the smart kids and who are the dumb kids. As an adult, I do not like this delineation, but it would be foolish to deny the reality experienced by most 5-year-olds as the point that socialisation becomes influenced by academic prowess. I noticed I was on the smarter end of the spectrum, sure, but I simultaneously knew that at some point I’d probably reach my ceiling. I’d get to a point where I could no longer grow, just as others in my class struggled to add up their fractions. Ah how dumb that was. Years later, a teacher explained the difference between a fixed and open mindset. i.e. “I only have x amount of ability allocated to me for this” versus “my ability is malleable as long as I work hard at it”. At the time, I thought this was some new-age bullshit perpetrated by mums who didn’t want to admit the faults of their children. However, I now must admit I too believe the concept. I’ve overcome my internally imagined ceiling so many times, I’ve even passed the ceiling of the number of times I thought I could pass my ceiling. And that in itself is enough to teach me there truly are no limitations, only those I imagine. I’ve become familiar with the sensation of hitting your proverbial roof and passing through it to find there’s more room on the other side, such that this sensation itself is what I’m addicted to. Those kids, who falsely believed they couldn’t add their fractions, have probably worked it out. They’re most likely out there learning a whole bunch of stuff on their journey through life, as am I.
Your potential is infinite, measure its value how you wish. Value curiosity and exploration. Do not seek futile validation in the form of numerical report cards. This is a void that can never be filled. Remember that much can be learned without the ticket price of student debt, and it is by doing so that you will learn how to learn–teaching yourself is the greatest tool of all.
If you’re apprehensive about your next big thing, wondering if you can do it, well whatever your it is, my answer is that you can. Go out and teach yourself, bit by bit, everything you need to know. As long as you are willing, you are able.
Question is, what else might you be able to do too?