How to Learn About Everything →
First item on the list:
- Read and skim journals and textbooks that (at the moment) you only half understand.
I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, due mostly to something I can’t help, a voracious reading appetite. But it works. Read things you don’t completely understand. Don’t demand full context. Every discrete part that you do understand is a puzzle piece that will become useful later. With this approach I’ve developed (or rather, am still developing) a working basic knowledge of a lot of areas, including macroeconomics and typography.
It works with people too. Some of the most rewarding relationships I’ve had have been with people I didn’t understand well at first. In a couple of cases, this was literally true right down to their speech — I could hardly understand them. The best thing is to listen, pretending you get it and sweeping up the bits you can as you go, leading them on with token responses until it begins to click. It sounds deceptive, but I found that eventually, the more I listened the better I understood.
