The Paradox of Self-Education
In college, I initially felt challenged, eventually adapted to the curriculum, and ultimately felt stifled by it. The change of environment from high school, new concepts, and people helped expand my intellectual horizons by a considerable amount, but I was also constrained by the need to complete mundane requirements to formally receive my degree.
I am now employed with a 40-hour-per-week job. While there is material to be learned at the workplace, it is ultimately limiting. Being a professional pays well, but the customer ultimately rules; or in the case of a large corporate software developer, decisions are typically dictated by bureaucracy, and the true essence of the field far from being achieved. My true passions are pursued in the hours after work and before bed. We can call these hobbies.
Hobbies tend to be thought of as casual pursuits. For instance, suppose I wanted to play the piano. Being in my mid-20’s, it would take a substantial amount of time to develop a decent amount of skill. What if I find I really like it, and aspire to become really good? I certainly couldn’t quit my job, since nobody is going to pay me to learn piano. I could devote all my leisure time to it, but various duties would get in the way; chores, crunch time at work, having a social life, etc. Most good piano players my age that have considerable skill have been playing since childhood. Yet, I don’t feel it should be “too late” to pursue this.
In short, I can make a determined, committed devotion to learn something well and practice it, but it ultimately must create value in the economy for it to be considered a worthwhile endeavor. While learning is generally seen positively by society, I feel it has taken the form of being intended primarily for employment competitiveness.
Over time, these interests blossom and the passions cumulate. Many could become full-time jobs in-and-of themselves (becoming a professional piano player, for instance).
The paradox of self-education is that there are intellectually stimulating endeavors which don’t have a direct impact in the job market or in school. While learning is generally a valued skill, and the knowledge attained by it sought after, there is a limitation of the desire to learn (and by extension, produce) due to these systematic social constructs.
In these hypothetical piano studies, suppose I were compose an excellent piece of work. This is entirely possible and should not be reserved for the professionals. Perhaps I could draw from my vast programming knowledge to apply some new ideas to the piece. In fact, not being a professional musician would allow me to think outside the box to which an educated composer has conformed and hence confined his thinking. This has occurred before in the past; for example, it is widely known that the Beatles could not read music, yet are considered some of the most prolific musicians in rock and roll.
In areas more closely related to my profession, I often wanted to pursue independent projects–contributing to an open source project, getting a group of folks together to prototype a new idea, or just hacking at something cool in general–but the need to succeed in school and find a job always prevailed. In other words, I had to sacrifice potential skill-improving and value-creating pursuits to ensure my GPA was solid, I demonstrated leadership experience, and otherwise had sufficient merit to please the recruiters on campus.
It seems that perhaps the only way to fulfill the quest of self-education is to have a flexible job that teaches you one specific area, and thus allows you to utilize your free time for the remaining ones. I believe that’s how Da Vinci did it as a painter. Did other polymaths do the same? What happened to the Renaissance Man? As the human race advances, will it become more difficult to become a generalist?
I know I am not simply suffering information overload, because this is something beyond, which no amount of contemporary technology can address. The only way to address this is to quit work and school and become solely immersed in combatting this type of overload, that is, pursuing a variety of endeavors.
Lastly, I used to think that early retirement was the only way to pursue this, that is, get rich and cash out young. There is an ostracizing element to early retirement, though and remaining a part of formal institutions is beneficial for larger pursuits. I am writing vaguely here, so please inquire if you have questions or thoughts.
For those of you out there that have solved this problem, what was your solution? What is your solution? Is intellectual curiousity a life-long challenge?
Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response. Please see further discussion at Hacker News.