Also, as controversial as this link was when it was posted a couple of days ago[1], I think you could do worse than reading through esr's "How To Become A Hacker" essay[2].
Our very own pg also has some excellent essays and articles[3] you might want to read.
If you're interested in getting involved in an open source project as part of your learning initiative, here's a shameless plug for what I'm working on:
https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy
https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick
If you're interested, clone either or both repos, and join the Google group[4] and I'll do my best to answer questions and help out.
All of that said, I believe that one of the defining characteristics of a good hacker is a high level of innate curiosity, a strong desire for self-motivation and self-learning, and a naturally high level of persistence and determination. Given that, a good hacker will find a way to learn to hack, whether anyone else helps or not. So, yeah, asking for advice and help here is a Good Thing, and looking for mentors is always a good idea. But, in the end, don't rely on somebody else, just dig in and do it. If you get stuck on a specific question, ask on StackOverflow, or a relevant Usenet group, or mailing list or IRC channel or whatever. But read "How to ask questions the smart way"[5] beforehand. :-)
[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5248742
[2]: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
[3]: http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html