The author here talks about demystifying the kinds of work that you don't think you're capable of. He uses the example of handiwork and building things, but it really goes beyond that—I think this is a really good attitude to take to a lot of aspects of life.
Let me give a little personal context. Back when I was a teenager coming out of high school, I was pretty averse to diving into subject matter that I didn't feel comfortable with. I had exactly the same attitude the author disparages here—that sort of "that's for experts to deal with, not me" kind of attitude.
But, out of a combined interest in both computers and general science, I ended up entering an engineering degree that was highly general for the first two years. This was the "advanced" sort of engineering stream at the university—higher course loads, more material covered faster, and in areas where I almost certainly wasn't going to be using to make a living. Like most people here, I work in software these days, but during the generalist part of the program I took everything from thermodynamics, to civil engineering, to quantum mechanics, to fluid dynamics, to vector calculus, to molecular biology, to electromagnetics, to material science, to statistics, to electrical circuits, to... you get the picture.
I was not prepared for this in the least.
A lot of people asked me, "If you already know you have an interest in computers, why are you putting yourself through this instead of going through a standard computer science or computer engineering degree?" It was a question I asked myself very often as well, to the point where I was at one point strongly considering switching out. But I'm glad I didn't, because looking back on it, the biggest thing I got out of it was not the broad scientific background—I can barely remember much of the stuff from the more esoteric courses I took—but the knowledge that I could, in fact, learn these kinds of things in a relatively quick timeframe. That these things were not eternal mysteries, not the exclusive domain of "experts", and that I could, given enough effort, understand them, at least decently enough to do my assignments and pass the course.
I tried to keep this lesson in mind moving forward, and still try to keep it today. In my last year, I signed up for a course on compilers, not because I wanted to work on compilers but because I wanted to demystify one of the last things that still seemed mysterious in my day-to-day computer work. Once I started working for a living, I read up on some basic personal finance so I could manage my money properly. Last year, I was unsatisfied with the design of my personal website, so I learned some basic color theory and typography and redesigned it myself. These days, I've been learning Chinese[0]—something most westerners balk at doing—out of personal interest, and the feeling of walking down a street in Chinatown and suddenly realizing, "Hey, I can make out a bit of what's written on the signs now, whereas a few weeks ago it was all incomprehensible hieroglyphics" is incredibly liberating.
So this post resonates with me pretty deeply. It's just wood. You shouldn't believe that these things are beyond your grasp, because if you do it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This spirit of lifelong learning is something I hope never leaves me. The day I stop learning will be the day I die.
I definitely agree. I think people forget that they can learn things, or they get caught up in this "too old to learn" kind of trap, or at least "too old to learn anything serious."
I've always dug computers, but hadn't done anything with programming until I was 26 or so (I'm 31 now). A friend of mine had gotten a degree in journalism, and then just decided he wanted to program instead. He ended up getting a full time gig doing it. I thought, "hey, that looks cool, why not" and started teaching myself, as well. Now I have a full time gig doing full stack c# dev and I love it. It's not because I'm some kind of genius or a computer whiz. It friggin sucks trying to learn new concepts sometimes. Eventually I just realized I'm training a really effective neural network. If I fire enough information and different ways of looking at the concept through my brain matter, and make sure I understand the underlying principles, eventually it'll start making sense; soon enough it'll feel like something I always knew.
It made me feel a lot more comfortable with life. It's not even because suddenly I have a marketable skill, which is super nice, but more because I feel like I could learn just about whatever I want tomorrow if I needed to. It's really liberating.
I also feel the post resonates with me, but I've found drawbacks to these things. In particular, I find that this attitude always makes me busy. Busy watching online lectures, busy doing household maintenance, busy thinking about whether an idea I've had is reasonable or not. Something non-trivial always on my mind.
This busy-ness sort of strikes me for two reasons: 1) contrast from the roommates I have and 2) being extrovert at heart, these things simply take time away from socializing and paying more attention to the people I'm close to. I try to find a good balance between "Tonight I think I'm gonna chip away some more on Baysian networks" vs. "Tonight I think I'll sit back and watch a movie with the roomies", but I feel like it's always a losing battle --- I'm not on par with the level of attention either thing would ideally have. The truth of the matter is, sure in this case "it's just wood" the whole project probably didn't take a huge amount of time, but for most of the examples you gave, for example, those certainly took quite a lot of your time, I'm sure.
So the question is this: is this curiosity combined with some ambition and readiness for action really a virtue? Where do you draw the line? I appreciate the obvious pros of "it's just wood", but at the same time, how do I decide when it's right to just say "I'll just pass on spending time trying to understand this, I want to put some more time in appreciating those around me."
That's a good point. As with most things in life, it's always a balance. I'll admit I'm more toward the introverted side of the spectrum, which probably leads me to take more solitary time than someone like you. But it doesn't have to take too much out of your life—the benefit of self-directed learning is that since there's (typically) no deadline, you can take it at your own pace. If that means the learning stretches on for months on end, that's ok. And you can choose to go only as deep as you need to—the goal is not necessarily to get a super-deep understanding of the topic, but to get enough of a taste of it to demystify it. After you've touched on it, you can decide whether it's worth it to go deeper. In my case, when I was studying typography and design[0], I learned just enough that I could come up with a simple, functional design for my website that I was satisfied with, and then I mostly stopped.
It also helps if you can pick a topic that doesn't require large bursts of uninterrupted time, something you can read up on when you have a spare moment and are bored. Bayesian networks might not fit that mold, but things like personal finance and Chinese can—the former I learned mostly from short articles and looking up things I was unfamiliar with, and the latter is mostly involving continued repetition of the vocabulary I have to memorize, in short but frequent bursts. It can be powerful if you can make it a part of the background radiation of your life.
Lastly, I do want to mention that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Part of the reason I've been learning Chinese is for the sake of coming closer to those around me.
In the end, it's your life. You get to choose how you spend your time. But it's definitely not a black-and-white choice.
Let me give a little personal context. Back when I was a teenager coming out of high school, I was pretty averse to diving into subject matter that I didn't feel comfortable with. I had exactly the same attitude the author disparages here—that sort of "that's for experts to deal with, not me" kind of attitude.
But, out of a combined interest in both computers and general science, I ended up entering an engineering degree that was highly general for the first two years. This was the "advanced" sort of engineering stream at the university—higher course loads, more material covered faster, and in areas where I almost certainly wasn't going to be using to make a living. Like most people here, I work in software these days, but during the generalist part of the program I took everything from thermodynamics, to civil engineering, to quantum mechanics, to fluid dynamics, to vector calculus, to molecular biology, to electromagnetics, to material science, to statistics, to electrical circuits, to... you get the picture.
I was not prepared for this in the least.
A lot of people asked me, "If you already know you have an interest in computers, why are you putting yourself through this instead of going through a standard computer science or computer engineering degree?" It was a question I asked myself very often as well, to the point where I was at one point strongly considering switching out. But I'm glad I didn't, because looking back on it, the biggest thing I got out of it was not the broad scientific background—I can barely remember much of the stuff from the more esoteric courses I took—but the knowledge that I could, in fact, learn these kinds of things in a relatively quick timeframe. That these things were not eternal mysteries, not the exclusive domain of "experts", and that I could, given enough effort, understand them, at least decently enough to do my assignments and pass the course.
I tried to keep this lesson in mind moving forward, and still try to keep it today. In my last year, I signed up for a course on compilers, not because I wanted to work on compilers but because I wanted to demystify one of the last things that still seemed mysterious in my day-to-day computer work. Once I started working for a living, I read up on some basic personal finance so I could manage my money properly. Last year, I was unsatisfied with the design of my personal website, so I learned some basic color theory and typography and redesigned it myself. These days, I've been learning Chinese[0]—something most westerners balk at doing—out of personal interest, and the feeling of walking down a street in Chinatown and suddenly realizing, "Hey, I can make out a bit of what's written on the signs now, whereas a few weeks ago it was all incomprehensible hieroglyphics" is incredibly liberating.
So this post resonates with me pretty deeply. It's just wood. You shouldn't believe that these things are beyond your grasp, because if you do it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This spirit of lifelong learning is something I hope never leaves me. The day I stop learning will be the day I die.
[0] As mentioned earlier here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7623418