cesartalvez Learning | Learn Anything!

Ops. This article needs a revision! :p

Ironically, I will start the blog with a very antithetic positioning: I think it’s not viable to be 100% percent self-taught in anything.

In the simplest terms, learning anything is about acquiring the information and habits that will allow you to perform a certain skill (preferably without you even needing to think about it). You must learn the correct WHAT to do. So if you want to learn how to play the electric guitar, for example (my new favorite hobby), you start with basic exercises that train your hand to be in the right shape, reach the right strings, etc. You learn chords, techniques such as sweep picking, tapping, bending, and so on. With time, the practice will eventually and slowly take the information out from your short-term memory and into your long-term memory, which is a fancy way of saying then have the skill you used to desire.

Observe that this all depends on you learning the RIGHT information or sequence of actions. In the majority of fields, those have been already time-tested, registered, documented and taught extensively, specially in the arts. Theoretically, you could learn this all by yourself: it’s not impossible to distill all the grammar of a language, learn about all the nuances of human anatomy, or bash your hand onto the guitar until you could say it, draw it, or play it perfectly. The problem is you most certainly don’t have enough lifetime to do that.

You couldn’t EVER gather as much information as the whole mankind accumulated in millennia. You shouldn’t avoid learning from others just to wear the label of self-taught. Being self-taught isn’t about learning all by yourself. That’s unnecessary and stupid. It’s more about using different / alternative sources to gather the information you need.

Instead of going to a specific school, you download books online. Instead of hiring a private teacher, you see video courses, observe people, or get a good friend to mentor you. And the dots of knowledge that are left, then, can be filled through experimentation.

It takes discipline. It takes time, probably more than you would need with a good teacher. But sometimes, when good teachers are not available or you don’t have the resources to pay them, it’s the only option. But don’t try to do it “by yourself”. That’s unnecessary and plain stupid.

Use the internet, books or whatever you need to gather quality information on the subject / skill you want to learn. Act on it, and use alternative means of getting feedback on your actions (self-analyzis, experimentation, and so on). And then, when you reach the point where you have finally mastered your skill and need to explain to people how you learned it, you can say you are “self-taught” (even though, in reality, you really aren’t. ;))