How To Learn and Master Any Skill - The Ultimate Guide

8/19/2021 How to Learn and Master Any Skill - The Ultimate Guide
VARUN MAYYA PREMIUM
How to Learn and

Master Any Skill - The
Ultimate Guide
In the programming circles, the LISP programming language has a

place of reverence. It’s distinctly different from other programming
languages and gives its users a unique perspective on programming in
general. I was on this page a year ago, pondering whether I should
learn LISP (I wanted to do it for a new perspective on logic, less for its
https://www.varunmayya.com/how-to-learn/ 1/15
utility. After all, learning a new language unlocks a new way to think).
But as soon as I opened the page, a familiar feeling hit me --
Frustration!
“I don’t understand this -- it seems too alien to me. I’m going to give up!”
said the monkey brain.
That’s right. The first few times I felt this emotion of frustration, I chose
to give up. But over the years, I grew to become comfortable with it. It’s
like my relationship with anxiety: early in my career, I used to run away
from things that caused me anxiety; but now I’ve learned to ignore it
unless there’s a legitimate reason for its existence.
The mountain of frustration

Between you and the skill you desire, lies a mountain. If the subject is
simple, then what is in front of you is a small hill. Muster enough
motivation, and you can cross easily. But the most complex of concepts
-- like multiplayer game programming, is a mountain the size of Everest.
So large that the peak isn’t even visible to the naked eye. It’s covered in
clouds, and you only have a hazy, cloudy idea of what the peak might
be. But yet, it stands before you.
In this letter, I want to tell you what I’ve learned about scaling such
mountains. Where to begin, who to bring along, and how to create a
map.
One of the reasons a child finds mathematics boring, yet can learn to
play football for hours, is because the two concepts hold different
meanings in the child’s head. One is boring -- time goes ever so slowly
while learning mathematics. You might as well watch paint dry.
The other is fun -- hours can disappear playing that game of ball.
But there’s another, hidden reason these two concepts are held
differently by a child’s brain -- Role models.
The power of role models

Every child wants to be Ronaldo. Absolutely no child wants to be a
mathematician. The main reason for this is because of the television set.
On TV, Ronaldo is celebrated -- stadiums chant his name, and entire
nations sing his praises. Hell, you can even play as him on the FIFA
games on a Playstation. A child who grows up watching TV wants to
be Ronaldo.
Wrestling Entertainment, an incredibly dangerous and exhausting

profession (wrestlers are traveling and training weekly on work), is not
something my parents would ever want to work in. Not even as a last
resort.
But not me. I grew up watching Stone Cold and the Rock duel it out in
the ring. Stadiums chanting their name. My brother and I spent days
chokeslamming each other on the bed. Hours spent on video games.
Working in the WWE was all I ever wanted to do when I grew up (apart
from maybe being a superhero). And it was all because of role models
and the environment that celebrated them!
The opposite of having role models is growing up having contempt for a

role or skill. Some of this could be socially instilled from a young age.
Most Indian urban children grow up having some degree of contempt
for being a servant or electrician. Have you ever seen an urban child
growing up WANTING to be a servant? The main reason for this is the
way society and parents treat servants. Something similar has

happened with people with business in India too. That’s why we don’t
celebrate businesspeople in the country.
Kunal was bang on with this tweet:
The path to walking effortlessly

Even if you choose something that is celebrated (and hence your
passion towards the subject will be higher than your frustration toward
it), it doesn’t mean you will be able to learn it easily; and neither is the
path to mastery straightforward. It’s instinctive for a human child to pick
up the ability to walk -- ingrained deep into our biology. There’s no need
for external validation or celebration for a small child to try standing up
and putting one foot after the other.
Why is it that when a child learns how to walk, it falls many times along
the way? The traditional education system we have encourages linear
learning. First, you learn topic A, then topic B, then topic C, and so on.
But a child who first learns to walk does not follow these steps. On
some attempts, it barely gets upright. On some, it walks a full ten paces.
The path looks somewhat like this:
Skateboarders understand this well -- they fail and partially succeed in

no particular order, enough times, till they get good at a particular trick.
But after they gain some mastery over the trick, it becomes “intuitive” to
them. All skills, on mastery, become intuitive. For example, you probably
don’t think hard before speaking words in English. Unlike in an exam,
where you have to think and answer points one by one, in real life,
mastery is just fluency without thought. A master at the ballerina has
an empty mind. So is the mind of a top-level esports player in the
middle of an impossible-looking combo. As I type this, my brain does
not think of each individual key before I type -- it just comes fluently: a
sign of mastery. But that mastery has come because I’ve made many
“typing mistakes” that over a large sample size become more and more
accurate.
Most importantly, I never sat down one day and committed to “I’m
going to learn how to use the keyboard in 30 days”, nor did I enroll in a 4
year course to learn the keyboard. The point is, whether walking or
skateboarding or typing, the process is “non-committal”. You learn in
bits and pieces and through mistakes, rather than in one long stretch.
Why are mistakes critical

Imagine you landed in foreign waters for the first time and were
assigned to make a map of the place and all islands in it from scratch.
How would you do it?
Well first, you’d mark your initial location and give it a name. Then,
you’d travel a little bit further north and find something notable. Maybe
an island, or a rock formation, or something of importance. Once you
find it, you’d give it a name. What generally happens at this point, you
would go back to your initial location to make sure you’re discovering
new territory in a radius rather than in a straight line. You do this in
games like age of empires too!
This is how noobs explore the map in age of empires:
(this player has not found any resources)
This is how good players explore their map:
(this player has found 2 resources- iron and aluminum, you can see the
light green and grey colored patches in the map)
The main reason people use the radial method of discovery is to find out
if there are important things nearby (resources in AoE) first that might
be useful rather than go down one single path and realize there’s
nothing there (but you’re also very far from home now).
Technically, the process of you entering areas of no interest (just water)

are useless. But they are important in the discovery process because
you have no idea if a certain patch of undiscovered area is useful or
useless beforehand. You have to go there to find out.
The same is true when learning something new. You have to make
mistakes and get to dead ends so you can make a full map of the
subject in your mind. It’s impossible not to make mistakes because you
have no idea where the good stuff is. And often, the good stuff is
available a little bit beyond the useless areas!
Now, this experiment about mapmaking is not one that would happen
in real life. Someone who first reaches a new land would not go around
making a map. Instead, they would find a single base and use it for its
resources. If you were thrown into foreign waters in a boat, the first
thing you would do would be to find land, freshwater, food, shelter, and
society -- in that order. So in real life, learning doesn’t happen in a map-
making process in the very start.
First, it should be goal-oriented. You have a goal just to reach one

island! After you conquer that island, make a base, and exploit its
resources, only then do you go out to make a full map of the place. This
is the reason I recommend people to learn something as a side effect of
a goal they already have rather than the other way around. I learned
game programming ONLY because I wanted to make a game. I learned
to make an app because I wanted to run a business.
So basically if you were Christopher Columbus entering American

waters, you would do:
Find land
Establish society
Make a map of nearby land
This is exactly how you should learn a subject.
Are you in trouble?

There’s a saying on Reddit: “If you can master astrophysics and cook
toast, then you’re in trouble”. The meaning behind this is that true
mastery (i.e, getting your brain to have a full intuitive map of a complex
subject) requires a sacrifice -- you no longer can do the mundane
things. Often, people are masters at only 1-2 things in their lives. Many
go an entire lifetime not being masters in anything at all!
What I’m saying is that you can only truly be an expert at a few
subjects -- you can be reasonably good at many, but top 0.1% at very
few. Choose wisely -- you cannot make too many maps in one lifetime,
but the few maps that you make; you can explore those waters fully!
All maps are similar in some ways, different in others
If you discover one land and make one map, you will find it easier to do
it for the next. The actual map might end up being very different, but
many elements are the same. The landmasses have a similar
distribution of substance in similar ways, water depth follows particular
patterns based on climate, tropical areas produce similar kinds of fruits,
and certain weather patterns repeat. Similarly with learning, even
though physics and bicycling are very different things, there will be
many concepts between both that are similar and repeating. This is
because nature tends to repeat itself, and all study is the study of
nature.
As you know, 99 rupees a month is a tiny price for a newsletter like this.
I don’t write these articles for the money, I write it because I want a high
quality audience -- the smartest in this country. If you have subscribed
to this newsletter, then that is a category which you are a part of. I’m
also reasonably sure some of your friends fall into this category.
I have a personal mission of leaving social media one day, and the only
way I can do that is if I can have a decent sized audience that truly
understands me (without any algorithms stealing my reach).
What would really help this personal mission is if you could recommend
a friend in your circle a subscription of this newsletter, making my
dream of leaving mainstream social platforms a reality.
I would be eternally grateful.
© 2021 Varun Mayya Premium — Published with Ghost
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8/19/2021 How to Learn and Master Any Skill - The Ultimate Guide

VARUN MAYYA PREMIUM

How to Learn and

In the programming circles, the LISP programming language has a

The mountain of frustration

The power of role models

Wrestling Entertainment, an incredibly dangerous and exhausting

The opposite of having role models is growing up having contempt for a

way society and parents treat servants. Something similar has

Kunal was bang on with this tweet:

The path to walking effortlessly

Skateboarders understand this well -- they fail and partially succeed in

Why are mistakes critical

This is how noobs explore the map in age of empires:

(this player has not found any resources)

This is how good players explore their map:

Technically, the process of you entering areas of no interest (just water)

First, it should be goal-oriented. You have a goal just to reach one

So basically if you were Christopher Columbus entering American

Make a map of nearby land

This is exactly how you should learn a subject.

Are you in trouble?

All maps are similar in some ways, different in others

I would be eternally grateful.

© 2021 Varun Mayya Premium — Published with Ghost

Terms and Conditions

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