I also feel the post resonates with me, but I've found drawbacks to these things. In particular, I find that this attitude always makes me busy. Busy watching online lectures, busy doing household maintenance, busy thinking about whether an idea I've had is reasonable or not. Something non-trivial always on my mind.
This busy-ness sort of strikes me for two reasons: 1) contrast from the roommates I have and 2) being extrovert at heart, these things simply take time away from socializing and paying more attention to the people I'm close to. I try to find a good balance between "Tonight I think I'm gonna chip away some more on Baysian networks" vs. "Tonight I think I'll sit back and watch a movie with the roomies", but I feel like it's always a losing battle --- I'm not on par with the level of attention either thing would ideally have. The truth of the matter is, sure in this case "it's just wood" the whole project probably didn't take a huge amount of time, but for most of the examples you gave, for example, those certainly took quite a lot of your time, I'm sure.
So the question is this: is this curiosity combined with some ambition and readiness for action really a virtue? Where do you draw the line? I appreciate the obvious pros of "it's just wood", but at the same time, how do I decide when it's right to just say "I'll just pass on spending time trying to understand this, I want to put some more time in appreciating those around me."
That's a good point. As with most things in life, it's always a balance. I'll admit I'm more toward the introverted side of the spectrum, which probably leads me to take more solitary time than someone like you. But it doesn't have to take too much out of your life—the benefit of self-directed learning is that since there's (typically) no deadline, you can take it at your own pace. If that means the learning stretches on for months on end, that's ok. And you can choose to go only as deep as you need to—the goal is not necessarily to get a super-deep understanding of the topic, but to get enough of a taste of it to demystify it. After you've touched on it, you can decide whether it's worth it to go deeper. In my case, when I was studying typography and design[0], I learned just enough that I could come up with a simple, functional design for my website that I was satisfied with, and then I mostly stopped.
It also helps if you can pick a topic that doesn't require large bursts of uninterrupted time, something you can read up on when you have a spare moment and are bored. Bayesian networks might not fit that mold, but things like personal finance and Chinese can—the former I learned mostly from short articles and looking up things I was unfamiliar with, and the latter is mostly involving continued repetition of the vocabulary I have to memorize, in short but frequent bursts. It can be powerful if you can make it a part of the background radiation of your life.
Lastly, I do want to mention that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Part of the reason I've been learning Chinese is for the sake of coming closer to those around me.
In the end, it's your life. You get to choose how you spend your time. But it's definitely not a black-and-white choice.
Comments
I also feel the post resonates with me, but I've found drawbacks to these things. In particular, I find that this attitude always makes me busy. Busy watching online lectures, busy doing household maintenance, busy thinking about whether an idea I've had is reasonable or not. Something non-trivial always on my mind.
This busy-ness sort of strikes me for two reasons: 1) contrast from the roommates I have and 2) being extrovert at heart, these things simply take time away from socializing and paying more attention to the people I'm close to. I try to find a good balance between "Tonight I think I'm gonna chip away some more on Baysian networks" vs. "Tonight I think I'll sit back and watch a movie with the roomies", but I feel like it's always a losing battle --- I'm not on par with the level of attention either thing would ideally have. The truth of the matter is, sure in this case "it's just wood" the whole project probably didn't take a huge amount of time, but for most of the examples you gave, for example, those certainly took quite a lot of your time, I'm sure.
So the question is this: is this curiosity combined with some ambition and readiness for action really a virtue? Where do you draw the line? I appreciate the obvious pros of "it's just wood", but at the same time, how do I decide when it's right to just say "I'll just pass on spending time trying to understand this, I want to put some more time in appreciating those around me."
That's a good point. As with most things in life, it's always a balance. I'll admit I'm more toward the introverted side of the spectrum, which probably leads me to take more solitary time than someone like you. But it doesn't have to take too much out of your life—the benefit of self-directed learning is that since there's (typically) no deadline, you can take it at your own pace. If that means the learning stretches on for months on end, that's ok. And you can choose to go only as deep as you need to—the goal is not necessarily to get a super-deep understanding of the topic, but to get enough of a taste of it to demystify it. After you've touched on it, you can decide whether it's worth it to go deeper. In my case, when I was studying typography and design[0], I learned just enough that I could come up with a simple, functional design for my website that I was satisfied with, and then I mostly stopped.
It also helps if you can pick a topic that doesn't require large bursts of uninterrupted time, something you can read up on when you have a spare moment and are bored. Bayesian networks might not fit that mold, but things like personal finance and Chinese can—the former I learned mostly from short articles and looking up things I was unfamiliar with, and the latter is mostly involving continued repetition of the vocabulary I have to memorize, in short but frequent bursts. It can be powerful if you can make it a part of the background radiation of your life.
Lastly, I do want to mention that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Part of the reason I've been learning Chinese is for the sake of coming closer to those around me.
In the end, it's your life. You get to choose how you spend your time. But it's definitely not a black-and-white choice.
[0] Mostly from http://practicaltypography.com/ and assorted blog posts.