jakelog

For the last month or two I've been learning very little in the area that I've been working. A lot of what I've been doing is simply stuff that I've been doing for years (html/css + frontend stuff), and the major new addition of python (though it is a smaller part of what I'm doing) was something that I kind of shrugged off with the thought "oh this is similar to ruby, I can just get by with the knowledge I already have..."

Needless to say getting by with what you already know is a huge fucking mistake. 

This weekend I did a lot of actual learning for the first time in months and it's been great. Seriously spent nearly 40 of the 48 hours I had during the weekend just learning new things. I've been poking around truly uncharted territory in the world of jakedahn, and I've had to actually learn and absorb knowledge that I thought I already knew. I've been digging around a new python api all weekend and learning how things work from the ground up. 

The major issue is that I thought I could get by with the limited knowledge that I had. Because of this I convinced myself that I knew how things worked, when in reality I only knew the bare minimum of what I needed to know to navigate and get the job done.

While the limited knowledge I had about this 'new territory' helped me learn more quickly when I was actually forced to learn things in depth, it completely fucked up the positive learning curve that should have been occurring since the start. I feel like I've wasted a huge amount of my life because I haven't been learning at the rate or speed that I should have been.

That said; I've come to the realization that I am ENTIRELY USELESS unless I'm learning things in depth. If I'm not actively learning new things and getting down to the roots of how things work I lose interest, I lose ambition, and my value to anyone is constantly depreciated.

So I have a new rule for myself: When starting to drift into uncharted territory I have to completely forget what I know, and actually learn and absorb the concepts from the beginning - instead of allowing myself to accept the limited knowledge I may have as a delusion of actual knowledge.

I also have a rule for people I work with now and in the future: If you can, push me! Push me to do things that are difficult, if I have to tread water for more than a day without learning anything, I will drown. For every small new thing I learn, regardless of difficulty, I will be able to tread water for another 6 hours, without that brain food I'm dead.