Thread by @jonjones

Just had a major happy-making personal revelation I wanted to talk out in tweets as I'm feeling it. The character limit helps me focus and being public somehow helps me get it out.

I was homeschooled and have no formal education. I'm predominantly self-taught on the job.

I was raised by Evangelical Christians that treated me like a Sunday School experiment to try creating the perfect godly child. I was severely isolated, sheltered, and alternately received abuse and neglect to shape my mind to think only of Jesus and to live with them forever.

Eventually I started to realize what was being done to me and I began to struggle to escape that world. I realized I spent my whole life foolishly believing my parents had my best interests in mind, and were teaching me the knowledge and skills I'd need to survive in the world.

To give an example, when I was 12, both of my locked bikes were stolen from outside our shitty apartment. Instead of helping, my parents staged an intervention and told me God let my bikes be stolen because I touched myself at night, and I'd get ALL of us killed if I didn't stop.

As I hit my teens, I noticed they meant me to stay forever. Once I realized that, I began to develop marketable skills, enabling me to move out at 19. It would be an understatement to say that I did not trust authority, or anybody that insisted they had something to teach me.

Since then, I've been entirely self-taught, learning what I can and where I can, trusting people only where necessary. Once I freed myself, I thought, now I have access to all the information everywhere! I can study forever, and be as smart as Sherlock Holmes. Mistaaaake!

I didn't realize that the way I'd taught myself to learn -- receive instruction from others, practice on my own, find other sources of information, verify results personally, distrust others that can't offer the same -- was completely at odds with pop culture's idea of a genius.

Once I broke out, I'd find myself crippled by analysis paralysis, inaction, insecurity, thinking "but wait, if I just study more or wait, I'll have all the information!" I just stressed myself out, got shitty results, and felt even shittier about it after.

Today, that changes.

I usually try really hard to focus on a single book and not distract myself, even if I'm interested in it, and that turns into me forcing myself to enjoy something. Who's ever learned anything new by being a stubborn asshole to themselves about it?

So I started picking apart why I was so fascinated with this and had no trouble focusing on it entirely to the exclusion of all else. I realized -- it's because I'm fascinated by it. The spark is there, immediately, and I grabbed it, and it was satisfying. I loved learning again.

So I started digging into HOW and WHY I learn. How did I accumulate the knowledge I have in my career? Because I learned as I went, and I worked on interesting problems. No one necessarily told me to, but my curiosity was such a powerful motivator. I'm grabbing onto that again.

If I'm honest with myself, the only way I really learn is by diving into something and learning what you need to learn as you go, and continuing until I hit a roadblock. The energy for that is driven by passion and creative energy and is sometimes fleeting and ephemeral.

Over the years I've beaten myself against a wall trying to live up to some idealized vision of the ultra-genius that has studied everything and knows everything and is a flawless compendium of knowledge. That's stupid, it hurts, and it really ruins the joy of learning for me.

I love following paths that interest me, and applying too much discipline to that really upsets me. I try to force things on myself and I just don't work that way. Why would I want to learn something while feeling stubborn and resentful? Fuck that, dash it all away.

I'm happiest when I follow my creative spark and only learn things when I need to learn them. It helps me focus on a goal, and that gives me purpose and drive and an opportunity to excel and be proud of myself. I only go into detail and history when it makes sense to do so.

I'm impulsive, I'm undisciplined, I shun schedules. However, I can be damned quick and clever when I'm inspired. I need to nurture that creativity and surround myself with opportunities to be inspired instead of trying to force a Sherlock brainiac model on me. That's not me. :)

Now, I feel completely freed to enjoy what I like as I like it, not to pressure myself so much, let my whimsy carry me, and try to document what I do and learn as I do it. As I get older, I realize more and more that almost all of my life's biggest worries were nothing at all.