One of the things that I most enjoy in life is learning new things, I don’t necessarily have to be a master of what I am learning at the time. Generally being good enough is all I need before moving on to the next thing.
So when I feel this urge to learn, I prefer to do it by myself. Having a mentor or a good teacher rocks, but unconsciously I always end seeking for resources to learn by my own.
This can be due to a variety of reasons, some of which are:
While all the above is true, there are some disadvantages. Some more prejudicial than others, but I want to focus on two of them, which I consider the two biggest drawbacks of self-learning.
The first one is the feeling of alienation. This horrible feeling that you can’t share your excitement with anybody: you have to play this new groove alone, or speak this new language with internet buddies. The internet helps a lot in this aspect, but honestly, it’s not the same. As far as I can see, direct human interaction will never be replaced. At this point, you may be asking yourself If I have friends. And while I do have friends, they not necessarily share the all same interests with me, moreover, I’m trying to learn new things all the time, which makes this more complicated.
The other thing to consider is discipline. Without discipline, you are lying yourself, and this self-delusion becomes your trap. You think you are learning something because you say so, or you practice from time to time. But if you aren’t making real, measurable progress, you are not learning.
To close this post, I’ll share a couple of things that I found useful so far, I hope to discover a couple more.