I’m realizing more and more than my curiosity has gotten me interested in lots of things, and gotten me lots of places that few people go, but that I need more than that to get to the next level.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great I’ve got this drive to constantly learn new things, and I think I’m pretty efficient at it too. The way it works is, I go through learning phases where I’m very interested by something. It might last anywhere between 2 weeks and a few months, and during that time I usually consume large quantities of information on that thing (thank you, Internet!).
For example, during this winter I went through a photography phase. Over about a month, I went from almost no knowledge to a decent understanding of f/stops, focal lengths, bokeh, the technical specifications of various lenses and cameras, various techniques to take portraits, landscapes, indoor low-light photography, composition, telephoto, high-speed, and some software post-processing. I’ve read dozens of in-depth reviews and specification sheets. I don’t even own a camera yet, but I think I know as much, or more, than many people who own fancy DSLRs.
Another example: A couple of years ago I went through a classical music phase. I went from knowing absolutely nothing except for a few pieces used in Hollywood movies to owning a few hundreds of classical CDs, within about 6 months. I now am familiar with almost all major composers from the Baroque period up to the beginning of the modern post-romantic era. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovitch, Bruckner, Mahler, Berlioz, Liszt, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Sibelius, Tveitt, Saint-Saens, Bartok, Holst, etc. Got various symphonies, chamber music, piano sonatas, operas, lieders, etc. Even have more than one interpretations of many pieces, because, for example, I like both the grandeur of Gardiner’s St-Matthew’s Passion (Bach) and McCreesh’s smaller choir and period instruments. During that phase, ArkivMusic.com was almost my home page and I devoured Hector Berlioz’s autobiography to learn more about the musical scene of that time. So in a few months, I learned more (on certain levels) about classical music than some baby-boomers I know who’ve been into it for 35+ years.
Since that phase has ended, I’ve been digesting all that music (it’s not something I could have done fully at the time) and acquiring more albums, though at a much slower pace. But still, nothing compares to the incredible productivity of that initial burst.
That’s just two learning phases I went through. Off the top of my head, I can think of many others that happened at various times in my life: Computer hardware, software, other musical genres (jazz, metal, klezmer, etc), literature (science fiction, etc), environment-related fields (climate science, energy infrastructure, transportation, food production, etc), biology (still slowly getting through a few textbooks), transhumanism-related fields (nanotech, biotech, A.I., longevity science, neuroscience, etc), economics, audio equipment, 20th century history, entrepreneurship/startups, astronomy, fighter planes (as a young boy), etc.
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