When I was a teenager I used to write an online journal at thefurryforum.com and I used to write many things in it, my life, my philosophies, my projects. Random thoughts I had, mathey stuff, mathey questions. I wanted to do that again so I did a few attempts, I attempted to write it here, I attempted to write it on Twitter, but none of it really stuck. The reason I think is because I didn't write this stuff for me really, I wrote it with the expectation that someone would comment on it or find it interesting. What I'm learning, is that through reading meditations, sometimes it is good to create a catalog of things, stream of consciousness style, just for me.
So this blog is now gonna be used for updates, weekly I'm hoping, about things I'm thinking about. And because we're talking about it I guess this post will be about exercising the mind.
Learning to me is the greatest past time someone can do. It feels good to learn, it feels good to know more things, I've always loved learning. But I've come to realize there are two types of learning, learning for joy and learning for utility. Learning for joy is the learning I love, learning things for the sake of simply knowing them, without any action or consequence necessary. Learning for utility is the learning I dislike, because it is more a means to an end, the end being what I want to do, it becomes a chore.
For example, when I learn about some networking concept in order to do my job at Google, I dislike this aspect of learning. Is it because I dislike the actual topic? Networking to me doesn't seem so bad, it is interesting. I find it really interesting how a completely decentralized system works, how routes are discovered in a way that has no global management system, it's actually very impressive. And still I find the concept of the internet sort of mind boggling, and I do find it interesting. Yet learning about the internet in relation to work is not interesting to me in the slightest. Why is that?
Perhaps it is impatience or rather distraction. I learn networking for work because I want to do a task, whether that's implement some new feature or learn more about the service that I'm running. So when I am learning the concept I always have it in my back of the mind how this concept relates to the task, and what I need to do for the task. Learning is a complicated road, you need to swurve and swivvle to your goal, it isn't a straight line, but I'm impatient. I want to complete the task quickly, so I don't take the road where it goes, I try to create my own road. Instead of learning where learning takes me, I force myself to learn only that which allows me to do the task. This defeats the curiosity, ends the adventure, and makes learning just a tool.
But why the impatience? Is it because if I'm learning to achieve the task there exists stress. I have to achieve the task in a given time, with a certain expectation given upon me, and so I need to learn quickly. And that stress, learning quickly, it makes a chore of a game. If you had to clean the floors, it might be a relaxing and nice thing to do, where you can clean the floors little by little while listening to music. But if you had to clean the floor with the expectation of someone else, then it becomes something else, it becomes a chore, it becomes an expectation, and that makes it harder to have fun doing. But no that is not the reason, because even learning to achieve a personal project is still something I dislike.
I think for learning for a personal project, the annoyance comes because I am so eager at the result. I want to achieve some awesome goal but learning takes a long time. I want to animate something but learning to animate takes years and I'm impatient, I don't want to wait years to animate my dreams, but I have to. Learning no longer becomes the point, it becomes the obstacle, maybe that's it. Learning for utility the goal is behind the learning, you have to get through the learning to get to where you want. But learning for joy, the goal IS learning, you are already there. I think that's what it is.
So maybe if I want to get better at learning for utility, I need to see the learning as the goal with no direct end result in mind. This is harder then it sounds. But maybe for drawing that's what I should do. Learning to draw should be fun because I''m learning a new skill, maybe I will never end up drawing and instead will do 3D animating or something. But learning to draw can still be good, it is learning. I should draw more.
I'm going to commit to write blogs more in this pose, just to myself, maybe link people when I want. Give deeper insight. The goal not for public consumption, but for the act of writing itself. Just like learning.
