I have been thinking a lot lately though about my hangups with learning though, I've had a lot of brooding time I suppose, in part perhaps because my weekends currently are thursday-friday which seems to line up with just about no one. It's hard to decide how much putting my thoughts into words around it is constructive, or just self-defeating. But, on a bright note, it has been sinking in a bit how far I've come. I said I was going to get a remote tech support job, and it took several years, but, hear I am. That was one of the things I was worried was impossible for me. It's still not ideal, but it's something that pays that's manageable, at least so far, and now I know I can, which is always a big hangup for me. If I did it once, I can do it again. When I've never done it, it may as well be impossible. That's probably a pretty normal feeling, doubt I'm alone on that.
But in my brief stint in university, I remember this subject coming up, in two classes I took at least, this period when you're a child, supposedly, that is the only time you can really effectively learn certain things, and example given usually being language. It's still possible to learn another language later, but it's much harder, and some dour fellows believe it's not possible to the extent to become as fluent or good at it as someone who learned as a child. I've always resented that. Because... it makes me feel like I'm screwed. My learning is fragmented, my childhood did not allow me to focus on learning. It was probably around grade 5-6 I started failing all my classes. But I'm even missing several full years of both elementary (or middle school? I guess it would've been middle school at that point, I'm not sure.) and high school. I fared a little better in my last couple years of high school in which I crammed to finish before I aged out after coming back. Does that make me just, inherently less capable of learning core subjects, like math, than others? To work twice as hard for less than half the result, and never be able to understand it fully? What do I do with that knowledge? Does it make me a fool to reject it? Because rejecting it feels like my only fighting chance, and so that's the approach I've taken.
The past several years through my 20s in some ways have been learning how to learn. Get past my hangups, figure out what I'm missing, which is one of the most challenging parts. It's easy to say just take remedial lessons, but, that implies I know what I'm missing, and a lot of the knowledge is from years I missed I'm not supposed to be able to miss. I'll know part of a subject, but not an important, basic fact that comes before. Learning the basics of just about anything feels like the hardest part sometimes. Not knowing what to ask, because you don't know what it is, and no one would think to teach you, and you don't know how to explain what you're missing because you know you're missing something very very obvious you've never been exposed to. In some of my hurry to catch up, a sense of stubborn haste might be part of my problem with learning as well. So quick to want to prove I'm "good enough" that I skip over something I would notice if I calmed down and just watched without judging myself for a bit. I've found practice exams help a lot, if I can find them for a subject. Just do them repeatedly until the connections start to form, then I have a base to read on, or listen to, about the subject afterwards, then, test the knowledge again with an exam afterwards. The immediate feedback helps me a lot I think.
The feeling of being too far behind has always been a persistent obstacle for me in this process. Of learning, or learning how to learn. There was a while back I was going hard into trying to learn to draw. But I couldn't get past this idea that no matter what, I'd never be as good as anyone else because it's all about practice, and I'm far too many years behind. You hear it's never to late to learn all the time with art, but also that it's all about practice and your time put in, and both of these things can be true, but I couldn't see it that way. To me then, if it's all about practice and time put in, then, assuming this other hard-working artist continues to draw at the same pace, I will never catch up to them, since I will always be around 20 or so years behind them. It's a silly thought and I know it doesn't work that way, you can't learn without lots of dedicated practice, but nothing is perfectly linear. But the weight of that insecurity of starting late crushed me every time I hit a roadblock, and eventually I just stopped. And I thought it was because I must deep down hate drawing, that drawing would bring that much pain to me. But as I've had to learn other things I've confronted that very same feeling time and time again now, and I realize it... wasn't drawing. It's my hangups with learning, and feeling too far behind. Too slow to catch up. That same pit in my stomach.
There have been a lot of skills, ideas, things I've wanted to learn over the years I've never even started because I was afraid of "wasting time I could be using to learn something more important" and trying desperately to find "the right thing to learn" to make my life better. But what that resulted in was me doing... nothing, instead. Because I can't see the future, or know if a skill or hobby, or job, or subject would be good for me if I learned it, or better than another one. I often wished I could pause time and just spend as many years as I needed to learn everything, and figure it out from there. I still wish that sometimes, I suppose. But I feel a lot more free now, especially since having rejected the whole capitalist notion of finding your dream job to dedicate yourself wholly to and give your life meaning, that one my school definitely pushed hard. I try to live now to experience life instead.
I put a lot of pressure on myself to learn fast to catch up, or prove I'm good enough, but that just holds me back. If I can put that aside and learn for learning's sake, not to catch up, not to prove I'm capable, but to learn whatever it is I want to learn, then I can learn. No matter how long it takes. I've frequently dealt with feelings of inadequacy around how much I need to practice or study to learn something. Instead, I want to be proud of it. Be proud of my persistence. I've seen it, and deeply admire it in others, why have I scorned myself for it? Every try, every loss, is something to be proud of. I've faced this feeling and beat it before, I can do it again, and I had to do it once before I knew I could. No more letting this doubt cloud me. Experience learning as I learn it, instead of being blinded by where I want to be, or where I should be. I should be here, experiencing life. That's how I approach life now, and perhaps more how I should approach learning.