On Learning

March 19, 2025 · Brooklyn, NY

This note is a collection of thoughts from others on the texture of learning. It’s a place I can revisit when I need a reminder of what it feels like to learn effectively.


From Andrej Karpathy, consistently wise words on learning:


From Scott H. Young’s essay, Do the Real Thing:

Related:

The most dangerous forms of procrastination are those that feel productive but actually distract you from your real goals

@devonzuegel

yak shaving:

Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you’re working on.

Haruki Murakami in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:

When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can’t fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.


Reinforcing the idea that learning requires deliberate effort is Andy Matuschak in Understanding requires effortful engagement:

If you want to really understand an idea, you have to grapple with it.

You can’t just read something, listen to a lecture, or hear a notion in a conversation. You’ve got to wonder: where does this apply and where does it not? What are the implications? What are the assumptions? Whose view is represented here? What does this refute? etc.


The Recurse Center’s self-directives:


In a way, learning is about bridging the gap between what I know and what I don’t know. In the video below, Ira Glass talks about a different gap: the one between a creator’s taste and their current ability. His advice is that the only way to close this gap is to put in the work and to remember that it’s normal for it to take a while. I find his words of wisdom to be a helpful reminder on my learning journey.



Steve Job’s commencement address: Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.


2025-03-19 19:11