r/lifelonglearning • u/OldMarzipan9773 • 21h ago
I've spent the last 10 years reading and learning new skills, here are my thoughts...
I started my journey working construction and reading philosophy. I spent time reading Aristotle, Confucius, Dostoyevsky, Camus, Kant, Nietzsche, etc. Even to this day, I feel like my thinking has been influenced by them considerably, but as for actual progress in my life, I feel like they have had a detrimental effect. During my late teens and early twenties when I was mostly into reading philosophical works, I fell in a deep depression that has improved a lot over time, but was really hard to deal with when I was younger. I started having difficulty connecting with people and eventually lost all of my school friends and moved to California.
When I was in California, I kept reading. By this time, I was reading religious texts, history, psychology, works of fiction, and anything that I thought would have a positive influence on my thinking. Life was moving fast and I thought that things were finally getting better. But, I couldn't land a decent job. I thought that the copious amount that I was reading was going to translate into an opportunity, because somebody would notice that I was eager to add value to their organization. But, it never happened. So, I decided to upskill. I started web development and learning programming skills.
It didn't really make sense to me at first, but I learned the basics. Then, I got in a car accident. I, eventually, got paid out $45,000 from the insurance claim and kept working on my skills. I took courses on Coursera and Udemy on graphic design software, CAD, GIS, and project management. I moved back to where I was originally from and landed a job at a Civil Engineering firm.
I was having post-traumatic stress disorder and the beginnings of psychosis. So, after working there for 6 months, I was fired. I moved to Nevada afterwards and kept learning. While in Nevada, I built a web app that took me 3 months and tried to get a remote job. Didn't get any. I made over 30 posters in Adobe and Inkscape and started to experience extreme forms of psychosis. I was diagnosed with Schizoaffective Disorder and given medications. After spending time in Nevada, I decided to try moving to Las Vegas and getting a job there. I ended up becoming homeless and traveled to Los Angeles, where I was homeless. I traveled back to Las Vegas and after some time, my cousin flew me back to where I was from to live with my uncle.
Since moving back, I've worked on writing, graphic design, 3D modeling, programming, and learning new things like SEO and Business Analysis. I wrote one novella, two short stories, made over 10 animations in Blender, and created a few websites. I keep trying to learn new things and I face mediocrity in them, while struggling to find work for them. Online courses and resources from the Internet only teach an aspect of the things that I have wanted to learn about and I reach an intermediate level before I taper off and can't improve any further. Without a mentor, a network of peers, and an environment to apply and learn new things, improving past a certain point has been something that I have had difficulty with. So, that's what I'm working on now. But, just reading and taking online courses haven't improved my mentality and skills where I feel comfortable taking something to the market and working in a job. In some ways, it has been counter-productive for me and has led to me struggling more than I would have if I had just gone to college. But, that has been my experience so far.
TLDR: Reading, learning skills from the Internet, and applying them to projects only help to a certain point. And, without a mentor, a network of peers, and an environment to apply them in and learn new skills, it has been extremely difficult to advance past the intermediate stage to be able to bring something to market or land a job.
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u/mindseyetemple 17h ago
It sounds like you've been building your foundation for a while and seeing progress, but you're not yet satisfied with your level. This is normal. We see the greatest gains in the first steps of our learning process, mastery takes years of focused, deliberate practice to achieve.
You didn't mention your discipline and work ethic directly. This is one aspect I've personally found growing in myself in recent years (I'm probably about your age) that makes me feel the 1% gains are finally adding up.
Another aspect to consider is how much and how often you're actually shipping, launching products, finishing projects and sharing them with the world, maybe even selling them. It sounds to me like this is the major gap you're currently facing, as am I.
In recent months, after having spoken extensively with ChatGPT about mindset, goals, and introspection - Chat has become almost completely unilaterally focused in its responses. Everything I ask it, it fixates on telling me to create artifacts. It sounds like you've done some of this, but what if you 10x your outputs? How long can someone remain mediocre and unpaid if they're outputting 10x more value than everyone else? This should be your focal point. Learning bears fruit within, creativity bears fruit without.
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u/OldMarzipan9773 17h ago
Great insight. It's hard for me to think up of projects and complete them. I have completed most of the project ideas that I have came up with in the last few years, but I can always improve my output to see if it has any improvements in my situation.
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u/Mission-Cockroach777 16h ago
This really resonates with me. I’ve spent time learning creative skills too, from graphic design and photography to CAD and 3D modeling, and I’ve realized that making projects is one thing, but getting meaningful feedback and finding people to learn alongside is a completely different challenge. At some point, more courses and tutorials stop being the answer you need real world experience, mentorship, and a community to help you grow past that intermediate stage.
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u/SameEntry4434 14h ago
Are you Good Will Hunting?
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u/OldMarzipan9773 14h ago
Lol, I used to love that movie when I was younger. I was partly inspired by that story to try teaching myself rather than go to college.
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u/Folded-Map972 2h ago
At some point course just becomes another thing you finished. You learn more when you are stuck on real problem and have to figure out what to do next.
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u/Plus-Judgment-898 18h ago
I don’t necessarily think reading philosophical literature should be the culprit here. Instead I think similarly to myself although not diagnosed, in the days of these famous philosophical authors, there was no such thing as a capitalist society. The main issue with today is that (at least in America) you are not rewarded for your ability to deeply think and interpret the world, but you are required to deeply specialize in exactly one subject. I don’t believe humans were designed for this purpose of hyper-specialization and so it can be difficult to grasp the idea that a company can’t see the value you potentially could be to them.