Chapter Content
Okay, so, like, let's talk about learning, right? You know, how we learn stuff and how that's, like, changing. So, there's this quote that basically says automation is taking people out of jobs, and that, in turn, makes learning the main thing we do. And yeah, it's kind of true.
Peter Drucker, he was saying ages ago that to be productive as a "knowledge worker," you need to keep innovating and, like, keep learning. Makes sense, doesn't it?
The thing is, the world's always changing, you know? Sometimes it's small changes, sometimes it's huge, and each change kinda creates this gap in what you know. Your brain fills it in, of course, by learning, but the problem is the speed, I guess.
I remember reading somewhere, and I think this really gets to the heart of the matter. This guy, Eric "Astro" Teller, from Google X, was explaining to someone that technology is just moving way faster than we can adapt. He even drew a graph! One line, like, slowly going up, that was us, humans, adapting. The other line started below us, and then just *zoomed* upwards. And Teller was saying we've just crossed that point where tech is moving faster than we can keep up. New stuff is just bombarding us all the time, ideas, information, problems... it's crazy!
Back in the day, you could go to school, get an education, and that would pretty much last you your whole career. But now? Stuff you learned even a few years ago might be completely outdated. I've even seen it happen in my own field! When I finished all my training, this new scanning technology wasn’t even part of the syllabus! Now it's essential for what I do.
So, to, like, stay relevant, we have to keep learning, keep upgrading our skills. It's not just about what you learned in college anymore. It's about whether you can *keep* learning afterwards, whether you can adapt. That's what's gonna separate success from failure.
And in this age of AI, learning is kind of like studying for an exam where the syllabus is *always* changing. You have a goal, sure, but that goal will keep shifting. Sometimes it's learning a new skill, other times it's new information, or really grasping complicated ideas.
Now, it's not just us humans learning, right? The tools are learning too! A lot of AI stuff, it learns and improves itself constantly. And if *its* learning rate is faster than yours, then it's changing too fast for you to even learn how to use it. So, you can't just rely on the old ways of learning. You have to be okay with just jumping in and learning on the job.
Remember that feeling you get when you're faced with something new and unfamiliar? That's your brain doing its thing, trying to learn. So, that discomfort is actually a good sign. It means your brain is optimizing its capacity to learn.
But, you know, if it's *too* much, if you're too overwhelmed, your brain can kind of shut down. You need to stay in that high-energy zone, where you're challenged but not completely paralyzed. That's where you really learn on the job.
Someone I know, was telling me when they started out as a junior software engineer, everything was completely new and scary. They were scared to change anything in the code. So progress was super slow. Their manager got annoyed, so they just decided to dive in. They started with the bit of code they understood best and made a small change. Nothing broke! So they did it again, making a slightly bigger change. Still okay! They just kept going like that, bit by bit, and they actually became proficient way faster than if they'd just spent weeks studying the code.
Another person had a similar experience when they became a manager. They got assigned a project that was totally outside their area of expertise. Plus, they had a new team! So they just focused on the parts of the project they *did* know, like data gathering and communication. As they made progress with those things, they got the confidence to tackle the unknown parts, and their knowledge just expanded gradually. It's better to start with what you're good at and then grow from there, even if it doesn't seem as efficient at first.
So, being comfortable diving into the unknown, that's gonna be a really valuable skill in this AI age. You can use it in any situation, any job, and if you can do it without being afraid, you'll have a real advantage.
Alright, let's talk about how we learn actual information. Basically, it's about capturing the info and holding it in your short-term memory until it can get filed away into long-term memory. So, your attention is crucial. You can't learn anything if you're not paying attention.
So, try to minimize distractions when you're trying to learn simple facts or concepts.
Once you've got the info in your short-term memory, you need to make sure it doesn't get evicted. So, after learning something, take a moment to, like, turn your attention inward. Think about it. That can really help you remember it. Maybe that's why walking can help when you're learning vocabulary. It stops your attention from sticking to things around you.
After that, you can direct your attention to things that, like, stimulate you, that get you excited. This might help cement your new knowledge. When people had to learn a list of words for an experiment, those who watched an exciting video afterwards remembered more words the next day.
And, get this, your brain actually needs *two* types of fuel when it's doing a lot of thinking, not just sugar. It also needs lactate. Exercise can help by temporarily increasing levels of lactate in the body, which then crosses into the brain.
Exercise helps your brain learn in a bunch of different ways, but it can be hard to predict exactly how a single workout will affect your learning. It’s all super complex.
For example, some people were asked to memorize the locations of pictures on a screen. Those who exercised four hours *after* viewing the pictures remembered it better two days later than those who didn't exercise or who exercised immediately afterwards. In another study, a couple of three-minute sprints fifteen minutes *before* learning vocabulary improved the rate of learning by 20 percent! But less intense running for a longer period didn't help.
Exercise helps learning by, like, raising your energy levels. You can use this to get into that high-energy state where you learn the fastest. But if you exercise too hard, you might get too tired and just not be able to focus.
If you're exercising *during* learning, make sure it's light, like walking. It helps you stay in that high-energy zone.
Now, learning complex concepts is a whole different thing. It's like filing a book in a giant library that's *always* changing. You have to fit the new ideas into the existing web of knowledge in your mind, and that takes some work. You'll need to focus deeply, but also let your mind wander and explore different ideas. Sometimes you'll need to, like, turn your focus inward and rearrange your mental library. Taking a walk can help with this.
Okay, so, "flashbulb" memories are when you remember every single detail of a moment because you were really shaken by something, either positive or negative. You won't learn anything that requires thinking in this mental state. You need to be in that high-energy state. In a flashbulb memory, you might not remember the questions on an exam, but you'll remember the smell in the room forever.
Emotions can also help the learning process by, like, making what you're trying to learn stand out in your mind. But again, don't let those emotions push you *out* of that high-energy state while you're learning.