The Paradox of Self-Education | Hacker News Reader

The Paradox of Self-Education

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37 pointsabossy26 comments

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

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

120 usd/month is about 200 Rupees a day - you do not need to look that hard to find accommodation&food in India for that amount.

I was in Northern India about 4 years ago for 2 months, and traveling (which is several times more expansive than just staying in one place, especially since I ate at restaurants and did all kinds of touristy things) cost me about 300-400 usd/month.

Well, I haven't heard of any other accommodation that cheap, but you're right, there are options in the same ballpark. Don't forget that prices have gone up substantially since the last 4 years.

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.

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.

I invested in three multi-family properties (12 rental units total) and became a landlord at age 21, so I also haven't had a good stretch of freedom in years. The sub-prime fiasco made me lose all three of them last year (their values dropped by 70%!) and I'm filing for bankruptcy this year. But I'm actually very happy the way things turned out. I learned a TON being a landlord and it made me realize just how tied down owning property made me. I'm finally feeling freer than ever and I'm really looking forward to the future!

BTW, it's interesting that you're looking to start learning the guitar and the piano... I've recently become interested in learning them too! Good luck, and thanks!

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

http://justinguitar.com/

Nice response post! Me too, I almost couldn't stop writing myself.

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.

Oops, typo. In the last paragraph I intended to say,

"Probably the strategy is to keep your passion [for multiple interests], but to take ..."

I don't know where the "not" came from; maybe editing error.

This was just cool to read on a personal level. I always enjoy reading about people with interesting backgrounds, which you certainly have. Best of luck in both worlds. :-)

The actor who plays Mr. Bean has an M.S. in EE. It's not uncommon for famous comedians in other countries to have technical degrees.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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... 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... 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.

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.

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.

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