
Ask HN: How can I become smarter? - _privateer
I like to think of myself as a fairly well rounded individual in most things. In saying that, I&#x27;m wanting to pursue a living in web&#x2F;app development and design, as I&#x27;m already trying to do so. I want to be able to create great products and contribute to the lives of everyday people. I want to be the master of my own domain, able to get things up and running without having to spend hours looking at tutorials, or asking some pretty basic questions on Stack Exchange without looking out of place. I want to get better at the things I already do, and be able to learn and pick up new things at a decent pace.<p>I see my peers excel at what they do while I constantly wonder &quot;Why can&#x27;t I do that?&quot; or &quot;Why can&#x27;t I be as smart as X in Y?&quot;, or &quot;What&#x27;s stopping me from doing that too?&quot;<p>How can fully unleash my potential if it hasn&#x27;t already been reached?<p>While I&#x27;m asking this, yes I know everybody is different in how they learn things, and you shouldn&#x27;t compare yourself to others, as you&#x27;re your own individual, but can&#x27;t I compare myself to others to help motivate me? Is my answer to read more books on topic &quot;X&quot; or to dive into &quot;X&quot; and break things?<p>What can I do to find my own path for learning?
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Broken_Hippo
Reading over this, I see a few basic things. First, you want to become smarter
and better, seem to be comparing yourself to others, and are a bit too self
aware ("... basic questions ... without looking out of place").

The thing is... you can't really become better at things without doing the
basic work. I started drawing before I could read - I'm in my late 30's now. I
still watch tutorials, very basic ones, to broaden my art skills. Even if it
is meant for children or Bob Ross. Valid techniques are hidden in those. These
sorts of habits are aslo ones i find in very intelligent people. It is hard to
feel new sometimes, but that is a habit like anything else, and after a while,
you get used to it and it isn't so uncomfortable anymore.

Comparing yourself to others isn't really bad, per se, but you still have to
do the base work and know yourself well enough to know when you need to
diverge from the other person and just do it your own way. I really admire
those who sculpt or paint in different styles than I do and wish I could do
it, but I know my own limitations and it doesn't discount any of my own work
at all.

The last piece of information is a few traits I notice in the most intelligent
people i've met: They have a broad general knowledge base, and tend to find
interests both in "hard" subjects (science, math, etc) and "soft" ones (music,
art, philosophy). They find patterns that scope between subjects and draw
lines between things.

~~~
_privateer
Thank your for your input and time. I totally agree with your points on "the
basic work". I believe having a foundation is essential for learning and being
able to build off things to adapt methods and strategies.

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exolymph
It sounds like you want to become more competent, not necessarily
intrinsically smarter. That's good, because becoming more competent is much
simpler than brain-hacking! Not _easy_ , but simple.

Here's all you need to do: 1) Read everything that interests you. Read
copiously, in general (or study via whatever medium works best for you --
audio or video can also be effective). 2) Pursue projects. Build things. Tell
people about them, and ask for help/advice.

That's it. Results take time, though.

~~~
_privateer
Thanks for your input. It's much appreciated. I understand what you're saying
totally. I guess part of me is that I want to learn something, on a large
scale, by tomorrow, and I need to realize that it's not possible to do that.

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edimaudo
First of no need to rush. You will get there in due time. You are on your own
journey. second master the fundamentals of web/app development and design.
This will take time and experience. Have an area you want to be a specialist
but have a solid knowledge of every area. Make sure you learn something new
everyday.

~~~
_privateer
Thanks for your words :)

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CarolineW
I'd suggest you read "You and Your Research" by Hamming - it's easy to find
with a Google search.

------
qb45
> I see my peers excel at what they do while I constantly wonder "Why can't I
> do that?" or "Why can't I be as smart as X in Y?", or "What's stopping me
> from doing that too?"

I recently experiment with "having fun", which I sometimes rationalize as
"delegating the choice of what to do to the subconscious" to feel better about
it :)

Rationale:

I was a "smart kid". The way I learned back then was lots of freedom + father
able to explain almost anything that piqued my interest at the moment (owned
lots of books and had read most of them). I also had a computer and freedom to
do whatever I liked with it, which was: playing games (and playing with other
software), customization, modding, programming - in chronological order. I
early learned to read/write and obtained lots of general knowledge. At school
I was bored out of my mind for the first few years, and in case of math and IT
classes almost till the end.

Things started to go downhill when I figured that "being smart" is good for me
and that people "like me" for that. I actually started caring about impressing
others, maybe even more than about my own curiosity. I allocated time to
things I though would be "cool" to do, even if I didn't feel like doing them.
Even when I liked doing something, suddenly failures started to worry me that
maybe I'm not that good after all, instead of motivating to sit until 3AM as
they used to.

I got a habit of "cargo cult learning", i.e. reading things I thought could be
"important" instead of just things I liked at the moment, as in my earlier
days. I had an ever growing list of bookmarks "for later" and never came back
to them. I spent lots of time on Slashdot and HN :)

After several years, I started to feel like I lost some of my former mental
performance, and definitely even more of confidence, satisfaction from work
and ability to go through failures.

Recently, I'm trying to care less about what's "important" or what others are
doing and more about what I like. Even if something is "unimportant" but I
like it, nowadays I'm likely to do it anyway. I'm finding that truly stupid
things quickly bore me when I actually start doing them and honestly trying to
like them, as opposed to thinking how I shouldn't be doing them.

I don't know (yet) if this will make me smarter, but at least I'm feeling
generally better now. As a side effect, I'm also finding it easier to
understand other people, maybe because at times I actually enjoy reading about
things that aren't "news for nerds, stuff that matters". Somebody mentioned
"music, art, philosophy" and I think there is something to it. Probably
forcing yourself to do such stuff only because somebody on the Internet told
you so is equally silly as compulsively reading every article posted to HN
about what you think will make you a bad-ass in your "area of expertise", but
I'd say - don't resist it when you happen to find something unrelated to IT
that piques your interest and try to notice such things when they come.

edit: A word about "cargo cult learning" and "reading everything". Sure,
reading helps. But reading too much burns lots of time and, at least in my
case, reading about things that aren't important _at the moment_ tends to
leave very little impression. I find it better to start doing something I
want/need and than read as I encounter problems.

~~~
_privateer
I possess similar traits to what you mentioned here. I'm very intrigued by
your words. To go with your comment about reading... I feel that there has to
be a certain balance between reading (to keep up) and actually 'doing' or
'building' something to test my skills. If I read more than build, I don't
feel as comfortable when I'm starting to build. If I'm building more without
being caught up, I feel confident in what I'm doing, but can't happen to feel
like I'm behind, or lacking modernization of my skill set. I guess 'finding'
the equilibrium between the two is the 'actual' equilibrium, if that makes
sense.

But anyway, thanks for the time you took to respond to me. It's much
appreciated!

