Maybe you should learn something

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• Hacker News
• Maybe, but unless you are unusually talented I'd advise against it. For every consumer there is a producer and vice versa. Most people are better off as consumers and this give more eyeballs and resources to the few talented producers.
  by casey2
• Maybe other people, besides you; obviously, like doing, knowing or learning things without the need to be the most efficient at it.

  Like, in a just having a life kind of way.

  But what do I know?

  by kruffalon
• This makes me sad. I am very confident it's also wrong; it fundamentally misapprehends what talent is.

  As well as not particularly being innate or "god-given", talents tend to emerge only when supported by learned ability. And not even just your own learned ability. Talented violinists exist only in a world that had talented violin makers: you perhaps cannot fully know how society could benefit from things you could learn.

  Two of my mini-talents are things I used to think were not just difficult but actually things I would be specifically bad at, like, worse than most people. (Which may for complex reasons be a sign I would not be)

  I believe it also misapprehends where the boundary between practice and consumption can sit, too, but that's a longer comment.

  No matter which side of the equation you sit, try to unlearn this belief you have, and help others unlearn it.

  by dofm
• I'm not the world's most productive person in terms of getting any kind of tangible economic benefit from my activities, but I probably am the most dedicated learner I've ever known. I'm sure there are people on the Internet who learn even more, but I'm a sponge for information. Every weekend in the late 80s, I rode my bicycle down to the Norwalk branch of the LA public library, spent the entire day reading, then checked out the maximum number of books they allowed, which was 6 as far as I remember. Every week, another 6 books. Never fiction, not biographies or light reading. I was heavily interested in the SDI or "Star Wars" proposals Reagan had and read about particle beams, lasers, satellite communications, all public information about how missile defense worked. I was nationally ranked at NTN in the early 90s and won a television quiz show when I was 12. I came in 2nd in the California state spelling bee at one point. Got a perfect SAT score. I also came in 3rd in a statewide art competition and won my high school district's annual art show 3 of 4 years I was in high school. I've never had even an ounce of focus and master nothing, but get reasonably good at everything. Lettered in four different sports. Ended up with (so far) 4 bachelor's degrees and 3 master's. I'm the last person I know who still never uses an LLM for anything, in part because I don't feel I need to because I have answers and know how to do what I need to do without assistance, but also because I want that to continue to be the case. I'm willing to struggle and practice and devote more time to learning and less time to sleep or anything else because there is nothing in the world that gratifies me more and strokes my egoistic self-image than always having the answer, not because I'm asking the web but because I actually have the answer in my own mind.

  But I never tout this as some kind of way of being everyone needs to or should try to emulate. As I said at the outset, I can't think of any tangible benefit from doing this. I'm exactly the same upper middle-class, white-collar office worker earning a very good but nowhere near "fuck you" level of money exactly the same as all my peers who are mostly more ordinary people doing ordinary things like watching Love Island and whatever else ordinary people do.

  This isn't the automatic golden ticket to a good life. I have no social media accounts. I don't even know where my phone is right now and often don't have it with me. I watch no video on it ever. Most of my entertainment comes from listening to music and even then it's active because I usually listen to songs I can sing and sing along while listening. Even then, I'm still practicing and I'm a very good singer. None of this makes me any happier or any better than anyone else. My mental health is not skyrocketing through the roof because I'm unplugged from the 24 hours news cycle and don't feel the scrutiny of my body and lifestyle not matching an Instagram ideal. In fact, I probably do match that. I've managed to lift at least an hour a day far more days in my adult life than not. I still run even in my mid-40s. I can't get a sub-16 minute 5k like I could as a teenager but I'm in shape. I still sometimes hit 80 miles in a week. My BMI hasn't been over 22 and I haven't had double-digit body fat since being bedridden with spine injuries a decade ago. I look like an underwear model for no reason at all because nobody ever sees it and nobody cares.

  It doesn't matter. It's compulsion. I doubt myself and hate myself just as much as anyone else does. I can't sleep because I feel like nothing I ever do is enough and the slightest disturbance in sleep jolts me instantly awake with my mind racing anxious over all the things I believe I need to do, all the ways I'm not living up to my own potential. All those degrees? Shitty schools. No PhDs. Good job. Okay, but I've never made 7 figures in a year. Someday I will but that won't be enough, either. Even Michael Jordan was angry more often than happy, alienated every person he ever knew, and spent his hall of fame induction insulting people and being mad rather than celebrating his own accomplishments. The only real ticket is satisfaction, being able to say good enough is good enough. Spending too much time doomscrolling and not enough learning a second language? So what? Give yourself some grace. People who speak 19 languages are no happier or better than you are. Learning a 20th is every bit as compulsive and pointless as you watching TikTok.

  I want more content on the Internet, or anywhere else, telling people all the ways and all the reasons they're already good enough, not constantly pointing out any and all shortcomings of the world and their own personal habits.

  by nonameiguess
• Lifelong learning as the ultimate skill
  by AFF87
• Post like this is what keeps me on HN.
  by cui
• This is an article written by a young person.
  by drcongo
• In the future we will just have our agentic assistant learn it for us.
  by threethirtytwo
• Agreed wholeheartedly!

  Struggling with what to learn?

  Learn to write! It’s the ultimate meta-skill.

  by cadamsdotcom
• a couple of decades ago there was viral advice going around about "the 1000 hour rule" saying that's how long it would take to master something new. Maybe it's time to refresh that?
  by DaveZale
• > just find some starting point that doesn’t look like a sales funnel

  this adds to the difficulty in getting started; so many times you start down a path, don't make good progress and hit a paywall or realize the path you started on is just marketing for some (not even valuable) learning resource

  this is super common with language learning stuff, especially because AI makes it seem so cheap to produce learning content

  by dirteater_
• What are some cool random things you've learned?

  // you == the reader of this comment

  by k9294
• "Learning anything is a long term project, and long term projects are necessary for building a sense of control over your circumstances. Almost nothing can be deliberately and meaningfully changed within the scope of a day, but in months, certainly years, a lot of things can be made to happen."
  by tylerdane
• Nothing is as sad as seeing some young motivated student losing patience if the task doesn't turn out to be a quick, easy win. The saddest however are students so eager for the quick, easy win that throughout their academic career they repeat the pattern and never really dive deep into any topic.

  I had a student come to me with essentially the same problem over two years and each time I helped her she was in refusal to listen as she stressed herself to just make it work now. Her problem was that she never took the time to do the basics and rejected any learning opportunity as it stared her in the face.

  You get results over time if you dedicate yourself to just doing the thing. For many subjects there is no shortcut, no way to walk the path without actually walking it. Every time you encounter an issue there is a learning opportunity. Use it.

  by atoav
• I need a benevolent alien to force me out of my rut when I’m in one. I had no problems as a kid because I had little choice at times, like the weekends where I was going to learn how to put siding on a cottage or plumb a bathroom, even though I wanted to play Zelda more than anything. I hated those summers and now that I’m a homeowner, I am deeply thankful for them.

  Literally an hour ago my 7 and 9 year olds came to mom and I and said, “thank you for disabling YouTube. We are having so much fun.” I know this sounds like a fake Donald Trump kind of story but I swear to god it just happened.

  by Waterluvian
• I like learning new things, and have done so my whole life. But thinking about our AI future, I think that learning as a goal will be greatly diminished, when the reward of learning many things is essentially zero other than your own personal satisfaction. I can see this already to some degree in my kids. I taught my older daughter, when she was young (8~12) how to build websites (html/js), code games (ruby), build 3D models (lightwave), etc. It was a great experience plus she now has a degree from a great college in engineering and has been gainfully employed since college at a good tech company (not using the exact things I taught her but tangentially related). I now have kids that are preteen/teen and I struggle with 1) "why bother", and 2) convincing them how these or similar skills might be of use to them. My teen boy is like "why do I need to learn this when I can just ask Claude" etc. I'm frankly at a bit of a loss.
  by insane_dreamer
• Couldn't find a mention of age in the article.

  It was probably written by a relatively young person.

  Nice intent and advice, but in practice, mostly harder and harder to do as time passes by.

  by ur-whale
• (author) I'm 40. Haven't really had any increase in difficulty learning things yet. Maybe when I'm 60 I'll have different ideas.
  by marginalia_nu
• Do you have any interest in trying a new language? If you have, there is a language.
  by dominex
• I honestly don't feel rewarding learning anymore. I might be depressed, because I feel all human experiences are overrated. And such, learning is such futile exercise in postponing the reality of life.
  by rrgok
• I struggle with the same feeling - though maybe I’d say I don’t find honing my craft as rewarding anymore. For years it’s been the gradually creeping expansion of the world - the more I develop new skills, the more I find there are so many others that (seem to) have done it better and faster. Then all at once I find that chatbots seems to be better and faster. It has sapped my enthusiasm. I don’t know if it’s depression or anhedonia, but I probably need to spend more time figuring it out.
  by jeffreportmill1
• I've been running my own website lately (www.makonea.com), and writing out my knowledge as articles made me realize just how much I was lacking. Running your own website is something I'd recommend trying.
  by jdw64
• I’m attempting to learn to use a slide rule. It’s quite a history lesson - we take for granted the large precision we get on calculators. But the learning is taking repeated visits, about 30 minutes at a time. I’m slowly getting it.
  by russfink
• > and/or have infants ricocheting around your home like screaming DVD logos

  Slightly off topic, but as a parent I found this hilarious and will now be closely watching to see if any of my own screaming logos ever perfectly hit the corner of a room.

  by ubj
• I really like how the article focuses on rest and not doing the thing as a core part of learning.

  How learning and doing aren't exactly the same and that you need to get back to it many times rather than doing a lot at once.

  It's ofc nothing new and the same principle as for example spaced repetition.

  by kruffalon
• The idea overall is fine. Do adults have success learning art? Like actually getting good at it? I've been kind of overwhelmed by how much time is expected of students to learn art to get good. Like its treated like a full time job? I see people online casually throw out spending 8-10 hours a day on things.
  by tayo42
• The key is to find something that you enjoy sucking at. I recently picked up quad rollerskating and the process of getting steadier and smoother at it (while just enjoying the vibes, music and community at my local rink) has become an obsession. It's my new third-favorite hobby (after programming and competitive cornhole).
  by wavemode
• I learned a lot myself, but lately I just can't make it on stable regime because you don't get much positive feedback you you're learning something yourself. There's no grades, no exams and all of your motivation is internal. In that case you need to work on a motivation and goals. Why would you learn something that doesn't pays off then?
  by cwiz
• You are tending a garden
  by hackable_sand
• I'm quite fortunate to keep piling on knowledge without extrinsic rewards: the acquisition itself and the rewiring of my brain is what makes it enjoyable for me.

  I look up to people who are well-read and try to follow their example. Maybe one day I can inspire somebody else.

  by xpct