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Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

slightly dodging the main point but just one sentiment I see a lot nowadays that I really dislike

>But I felt guilty for not learning new things and just listening to music all day long

Along the same lines something I regularly hear "I don't read fiction it's a waste of time". You can learn new things by listening to music, by doing or engaging with art, by rereading the same stories, and so on. Learning means expanding the mind of the learner, it is not external fact gathering. You can do the same thing over and over and learn something new every time, Nabokov used to (cheekily) point out that the only good reader is a re-reader, because you can only memorize ten books or so, you just gotta find the right ones and they'll last you a lifetime or put more succintly:

"The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes"

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>But I felt guilty for not learning new things and just listening to music all day long

Seen this a lot, and I'm in the same boat. I dislike this commodified view of life and free time, where every thing you do must result in a sort of real-life stat increase, like you would see in a video game (Persona 5 anyone?).

I think ultimately this way of thinking is extremely naive. It implies there is no underlying themes or philosophy in music or fiction whereas listening to a podcast will cause you to learn something new. The subtle messaging a good album possesses can be far more profound than listening to a guy talk about data science for an hour each day. Listening to a good album or reading fiction can give you new ways to frame problems or reconsider old approaches in your work.

We need more polymaths.

I don't think I learn much from art. But I don't care -- I don't enjoy art and music to learn. It's a much more emotional and human experience -- and that has just as much value to me as learning does.

I cannot agree more with this. After almost dying a couple times, I've come to see the "must be learning constantly" mindframe as utterly toxic. Expanding your skillsets is great! But it's mind-boggling how many people I know who feel genuine guilt over simply relaxing and enjoying life, art, friends, family, etc.

Slacking off and not getting necessary things done is terribly self-destructive. But so is cramming "learning", "goals", and "growth" into literally every second of your day.

Hey, just wanted to say I really needed to hear this.

I occasionally overwhelm myself with all of this stuff to learn, read, listen, do, and it takes a mental toll on me.

There is just so much out there, but we can't do it all.

I'm not sure learn is the right verb, but I think that it certainly opens the mind to other stuff that we couldn't previously see. And that cascades into other areas as well.

I think that is learning. Being able to see the world from other peoples perspectives is learning.

'Learn' is in a way the germanic-side equivalent of for the latin-side 'study' ("getting busy"), since to "learn" is to "track down" (intentionally actively progressively consider something... So, "to investigate").

In the Arts there may be little specific track, but it is acquisition of keys anyway, and a fundamental one, because the consideration of art is the encounter of patterns. Pattern for your further recognition, application, and for your development in general as a "pattern-rich entity".

I think you do learn from art - it is a different kind of learning though, one thats much less tangible. To your point it is much more of an emotional and human experience (also a great way to process in the background). After all music is the short hand of emotion.

If science is the meat, art is the spices.

Imagine the intellectual poverty of thinking that A Farewell to Arms and Beethoven’s Fifth are wastes of time but the a16z podcast and Good to Great are where it’s at. Might as well be an ape at that point.

> I don't read fiction it's a waste of time

Some truths are only mass-publishable as fiction.

And some lies/falses are much more convincing as a fiction.

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