The Art of Learning

The Art of Learning is — if it can be summed up in a single statement, I would say that the best definition is — our ability to deal with the chaos, uncertainty, confusion, and sheer adversity inherent in the learning process with some degree of grace.

In my experience, that is the best description of the art of learning that I can give.

The ability to hike a thousand miles, and to arrive at your destination cut, scraped, battered — but not broken. With your clothes torn, covered in mud and dust from the road, windswept, brambles in your hair, but none the worse for wear. With a smile on your face.

Some may think that I am being facetious, or that this is an exaggeration born of poetic imagination. Yet for any who have ever actually engaged in the decade-long battle towards the mastery of a thing, you will know that this is an accurate description of how the road feels internally.

The Intangibles of Learning

There is an art to the learning process. Some of this art exists in the tangibles, the definite aspects of learning related to procedure, approach, philosophy, and so on. The literal “How To” of approaching a textbook, memorizing material, taking notes, expanding and organizing those notes, how to research a specific topic, and how to build skills and knowledge.

All of this is important, and we will cover it all in great detail. Yet from my experience, I find it important to stress the intangibles right at the beginning, so that if you take away a single fact from your interest in the art of learning, that it is the knowledge of the pain of the learning process so that you are prepared.

Learning is a messy. If you have a teacher, mentor, professor, curriculum, or course to follow — perfect. That is the best because they will simplify the path for you because they have already walked it. (I wish I realized that sooner, to be perfectly honest.) Yet even then, it only adds a modicum of clarity.

You still have to find a way to internalize textbooks of knowledge, while wrestling with ideas that are beyond your present comprehension, while building skills that are beyond your ability at the moment, all while trying to apply things in practice that you just don’t fully understand. It is confusing, and painful, and you will doubt yourself at every stage if you are humble — and sane.

For these reasons, what I have found in my long, painful, rewarding — but also fundamentally demoralizing, harrowing, and humbling journey — is that the real heart of the learning process exists in the intangibles. Literally your ability to persevere through immense challenges, failures, and persistent adversity.

It exists in your ability to fail repeatedly. Literally to not be able to understanding something, and to feel that you are too stupid to ever get it. Not being able to perform a skill for years, which is an unavoidable thorn in your side that beyond any shadow of a doubt proves that you are inferior to all of those others who have that skill. What is worse, is that it is apparently effortless to them. (That is what it seems like, but I know now that everybody, every single master who has ever lived, struggled with something. Period.)

For many the hardest challenge is simply continuing to move forwards. Day after day, moving through the textbook, working on the skills, learning the knowledge, and then fumbling your way through trying to apply it. Like a teenage boy trying to navigate the minefield of leaning in to kiss the girl that you like.

(For the guys out there, I think I speak for all men when I say that I would rather deal with popping my head out of the trenches risking a bullet to find a sniper, rather than having to learn to read the signals to approach a first kiss all over again. I can almost guarantee you that my blood pressure and anxiety would be lower in war, than trying to kiss a girl for the first time. I choose the minefield. Anyways…)

Oftentimes, simply moving forwards through the material is the hardest part, because it doesn’t feel like you are getting anywhere. And if you are moving, it is at the pace of a glacier, going nowhere fast. Until all of the sudden, things click, and you are moving fast — at least for a while — oftentimes right when you think you cannot go any farther.

This is the uncertainty and paradox of the learning process, and it is the intangibles within ourselves that determines success above any other factor.

The Skills, Intangibles, and Process of Learning

The Art of Learning has skills inherent within, some of which I mentioned above. However, it also encapsulates the mindset, attitude, philosophy, and exactly how we approach learning from the literal act itself to the mental and emotional gymnastics, shifts, and battles we have to fight along the way.

All of these many elements must be considered, and brought into balance with one another, for us to cultivate an effective, efficient, and productive learning process. Which in the end must also be tailored to us as individuals — how we learn, why we learn, what we are choosing to learn, and our strengths and weaknesses cognitively, creatively, and also as people.

Contents

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