Dragon

Learning. It’s an odd thing. So many people and so many different variations of it it’s so hard to know how best to go about it.

I find knowledge absorbed from the voice of another or a book hard to fully absorb. At least there and then. That’s the joy of books I suppose as you can fill in a lot of the gaps yourself. With other people I have a fear and issues taking in what’s being said. The fear is that they’ll get offended, especially if I’m working for them, if they realise that I’ve not taken in much of what they’ve said. For me that happens at three in the morning the next morning and then I’ll have to go back to them a few times as the process is repeated. It’s slow.

I learn best on my own. And the above is absolutely context dependent. If somebody tells me a bit more based in philosophy, or feelings, or something that they as human have experienced, I can absorb that much more easily and my empathy kicks in. And really weirdly I pick up stupid facts that I find interesting much more interesting. In the end, I’ll hold onto a piece of knowledge more easily if either it’s touchy feely or if I know I can carry it forward to use practically, ideally for a project I’m interested in rather than the one given to me by the place I go to every day to pay the bills. Especially if the people there rather annoy me. I can’t be interested if I feel people have control issues or if there’s a feeling of not being very practical.

I have found people to dislike me sometimes. It’s rare but it always takes me by surprise. Yes I might be a nervous wreck, but I don’t have anything against anyone. Not until they’re nasty.

Anyway, the reason I was thinking about learning is because I’ve just finished Module 20 of 36 of my NodeJS course and last night I was thinking “Is this worth it?”

I’d like to think it was of course. I’ve invested so many hours into learning like this. I think it’s possible it’s more useful for me than some. I find knowledge like swiss cheese. That’s the stuff with holes in right? Slowly the holes fill in, but not all at once. I’ll get told something, a concept explained, but I can’t take it all in. Some of the words won’t find their context in my mind until something snaps many hours later and I’m able to relate it to something else they said and then they both grow in strength and context. This is why I’m at Udemy a lot. There is no way in hell I would remember everything from a 52 hour course. But the concepts are there somewhere. Also it allows me to grow in confidence because I know I’d understood everything explained.

Of course the real learning comes when you start building things. I need the front and backend to build a whole structure though, there’s no real escaping that. As a freelancing freelancer. And ideally APIs on the backend as phone development is also something I’ve played with. But…

It has to end. For the sake of sanity. And yes I have heard of the term “tutorial hell”, but I’ve been so heavily put off backend development over the years that I needed to be shown that I can understand it and I can use a framework and if I want to I can build that app that I want to sell assuming I put the time into it. But it has to end eventually because I’ve got a soul, so far, and it’s got to be fed into music as music must feed it.

That’s where the real magic lies. I’d rather be selling vinyl. Something simple. I’m not extraordinarily intelligent, but if you remember how to do things…hopefully you can sell ’em so you can protect your soul for a little longer than someone still putting in the effort in thirty years time. Maybe. That’s scary. I’ll have given up on being rich in ten year’s time. Maybe. It’s not that I actually want to be rich, but if you can create an income, or even hold down a job you feel like you’re being productive in, then surely that’s worth more than struggling with a soulless job, living with nobody but a cat and still trying to learn things you wished you’d learned twenty years earlier?

That and I have issues with lists. I get addicted. But after this one, yes there are more, but they’re more oriented around fun things like phone development and the quirks of CSS. Things that can be done a bit more slowly I think. Along with some guitar. And my God it’s time for some rock.

Also. My radio app. I know, I think, well I will know, how to do everything besides the webcam side. That side of it if I can make it work will leave me really very excited indeed if I can make it work.

But none of it’s worth anything if I can’t play the guitar or draw decently.

I am a dragon. Yes that was supposed to sound pretentious but I like it anyway…