

The Paradox of Self-Education - abossy
http://www.adambossy.com/blog/2009/02/19/the-paradox-of-self-education/

======
shiro
I'm a freelance software consultant, which is my main source of income.
Besides that, I act. I take auditions occasionally and lands to roles in local
commercials, TV programs, independent films and reginoal theatres time to
time. I'm payed by acting, though it constitutes less than a few percent of my
income (CMs generaly pay well, up to $1000/day; indie films and theatres
mostly pro-bono or like $100 per production).

I'm by no means a professional actor; I'm non-union. Acting is, objectively,
my hobby. In heart, I reluctant to call it a hobby, though. I keep taking
acting classes and hope someday I can land on some union gig. It's not about
money; consulting pays enough for living. It's about great experience working
with skilled actors and directors.

Oh, by the way, I'm almost 40. I was deeply involved in theatres when I was in
college. Then I decided to concentrate on building engineering career, got PhD
in EE and a programming job. About 7 years ago I became independent, and soon
after that I resumed acting.

Retrospectively, I think if I had pursued both acting and engineering
simultaneously, I couldn't get the current flexible working condition. When I
got a job at a company making video games and CG movies, I imagined I could
contribute to projects in a unique way because of my multiple interests. Then
I realized that, in order to contribute substantially, I had to excel in at
least one field; there was no room for a person who had multiple skills but
every one was half-assed. In any field I think you have to have certain period
concentrating in pursuing something to acquire skills at meaningful level. It
may or may not make money (money is largely determined by the balance of
supply and demand), but money can be used as a litmus; if your skill is unique
enough that people even pay to get _you_ instad of someone, probably you are
above par.

So I perspired in the software field. I couldn't become world-reknowned
developer or something but got enough reputation so that I could work
independently. Then I resumed acting. It's slow, but I'm not in hurry; I'll be
happy if I'm still acting in regional theatres and had a couple of small roles
in films at 60. If I had chased both acting and engineering, I suspect I'd be
much more in haste and desperate. Besides, the experience of working
professionally in one field can be applied to another field; I know how I
supposed to prepare, and I can see worth in my work itself separate from its
monetary value.

Any skill takes large amount of time to master. Probably the strategy is not
to keep your passion, but to take several years to deeply dive into one thing
at a time until the skill reaches certain level. Then keep doing them in
parallel for the rest of life.

~~~
electromagnetic
It appears your career has caused you to take things with a much more relaxed
pace and attitude, which IMO is an amazing thing. Being constantly worried and
desperate is never going to end well, however it may end tragically soon but
unless you're a professional artist that won't help getting famous.

I believe that living contentedly will produce a much longer and interesting
life. Everybody on this planet works, and it always appears that people care
more about what you do outside of work than what you ever did inside of work.
For instance, I don't care if a doctor performed a 24 hour surgery to reattach
a little girls hand, it's impressive but that's their job and they get paid
for it.

You probably have lots of interesting stories from your work, but I don't
care. I care about your acting. If I was talking to a professional actor, I
wouldn't care about 90% of their stories, I'd care if they programmed on the
side!

------
derwiki
I've been wondering if this is a case of "the grass is always greener." For a
while, my goal has been to have a residual source of income that I can survive
on so that I can work on whatever has struck my fancy that day. To those of
you who have achieved financial independence, are you able spend time
satisfying your intellectual curiosities? Or is your time taken up by other
things that you didn't anticipate?

~~~
ced
I've had some kind of "financial independence" for over a year now living on
savings from my grad school time. I'm currently staying in an Indian
monastery. They charge me 120$/month for a room _and_ food.

It's the most satisfying lifestyle I've had by far. I wake up every morning
and I just do what I feel like doing. Lots of hacking, learning and walks in
the mountains. The biggest downside is the absence of a library.

~~~
raamdev
That sounds like a great way to live cheaply in a peaceful/quiet environment.
How did you find and approach the monastery? Did you already know someone
there?

~~~
ced
In the plane, I met a woman who'd been there before.

The monastery is "not open for business", as one of the monks reminded me.
Normally only practitioners can stay. But I also had the goal of teaching
science and computers to whoever was interested, and there are 500 children
and teenagers here.

I'm sure you could find a monastery to stay in. For all the rigidity of the
core monastic rules, I have found them to be remarkably flexible and pragmatic
about daily life. If you're interested, email me. There are some wonderful
places in the Himalayas.

~~~
ido
How do you get Internet connection? Or do you just post from the local version
of an Internet Café?

~~~
ced
They have a land line at the monastery, though no network. Some people use
satellite connections.

------
raamdev
I can really relate to this and reading it sparked something inside me to
write a response. I started writing a comment on his post, but it became so
long that I turned it into a post on my own blog:

<http://blog.raamdev.com/2009/02/19/the-pursuit-of-knowledge>

My goal now is to continue living frugally so I can set aside a big enough
bucket of money to get me through one year without work. Then, when the time
is right, I’ll spend a year learning something of interest, possibly making
small amounts of money on the side. When needed, I’ll start working and
hopefully keep repeating this process. If something I do makes me tons of
money, great. If not... well it’s not about the money.

~~~
ihartley
I'm about to start doing this very thing. I've got enough money in the bank to
last me for quite some time at my current burn rate. I'm planning a 6 month
break to start learning guiter and piano, as well as surfing and working on a
couple of my startup ideas and I guess I'll see how it goes from there. I
haven't had a prolonged period of time where I have had no obligations in
years and I'm not sure how long I can sustain such a break.

Anyway, I wish you luck in your own endeavor. It seems rare to find people
that really want to have some quality in their life rather than just doing
what they think is expected of them by society... well, maybe not here on HN,
anyway.

~~~
tigerthink
Based on what I've seen, this site kicks ass for learning guitar:

<http://justinguitar.com/>

------
releasedatez
Great piece, I can relate to that. I was a USC business grad. After I
graduated, my first job was a loan consultant and I sold life insurance on the
side. Then after a couple years, I found that internet and coding was my true
passion. So I took an internet related job (lower pay) with no coding
experiences at all, I used my time during work to learn how to code. Then
switched to different companies, aiming to learn what I wanted to learn.
Basically, I got paid to learn. Not only that, I practice what I've learned at
night by coding my own stuff. I prioritized and devoted most of my evenings
and weekends on learning. That also means a lot of sacrifice.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: if you know what you are truly passionate
about, you'll find time and ways to pursue it. Prioritizing then comes easy.

------
vitaminj
There's only a paradox if you look at self-education from a vocational /
market perspective. I'd imagine most auto-didacts learn purely for the sake of
curiosity and the sheer joy of it (eg. it feels good to play music well, even
if only to yourself).

I have no problem spending the time / money learning something with no
prospect of monetary gain in the future. Learning is an end in itself.

~~~
runningskull
I think his point about making money was more about survival. We need money to
live, and it takes a long time to get good enough at something that you can
make a living doing it. The point is how do you make a living (not necessarily
get rich) while _learning_ to do things.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
iand it would be interesting if he had developed that. What is this "high
school, college, career" paradigm that we are supposed to go through in our
formative years? How can we make meaningful decisions about what will make us
happy when we haven't even finished developing as a person? later on it is
harder and harder to deal with the cost of furthering your education.

~~~
abossy
The original inspiration for this post is that there is simply SO MUCH to be
learned in the modern era, and that as we grow older and more educated, we
have access to more and understand more, and this gradually compounds upon
itself and becomes overwhelming.

I feel there are 4-5 closely related topics that I touched upon but didn't
dare delve into, because each one would be a blog post unto itself. The
"survival" lifestyle is one of them. Living with learning as an end is
another.

Ultimately, I feel that learning as an end is the theme of this post, without
regard to an eventual monetary gain. The paradox being, of course, that true
devotion (or should I say "pure" devotion) is only possible with monetary gain
as a an end, thereby eliminating the joy of pure learning.

~~~
skmurphy
Anyone with an inquiring mind should pursue their own learning where their
curiosity takes them. What is a "worthwhile endeavor" is difficult to judge at
the outset.

I would trust your own instincts and internal compass: if you are learning new
things and feel "flow" when you spend time on this side project, keep at it.
It will have some kind of impact.

One good article worth reading is Peter Drucker’s "Managing Oneself"
(available here [http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Oneself-Harvard-Business-
Clas...](http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Oneself-Harvard-Business-
Classics/dp/142212312X) and a little Googling may turn up other versions as
well) where he stresses the importance of learning how you learn.

One good book on this is "The Three Boxes of Life" by Richard Nelson Bolles
[http://www.amazon.com/Three-Boxes-Life-How-
Them/dp/091366858...](http://www.amazon.com/Three-Boxes-Life-How-
Them/dp/0913668583) which covers life work planning: the three boxes are
education, work, retirement (play).

In my own case I have always been a connector and cross-fertilizer, trying to
apply insights from one field or area to another, sometimes where they hadn’t
been considered before. There are many narrow specialists out there, you
should absolutely feel free to follow your Muse as long as you are learning.

------
mlLK
If education was a public class, then I couldn't imagine a worst interface
than the American private sector; oh wait, yeah I can, our public sector.

------
nazgulnarsil
blogger needs to stop worry about being "great" at something in order for it
to be worthwhile.Just the act of learning a new thing should be the joy, not
the having of knowledge.

