Never Let School Get in the Way of Your Education

Curt Rosengren over at the Occupational Adventure has a great post on one of my favorite topics: cramming new information and skills into your head. I've never been drawn to alcohol or drugs, but could probably screw up every relationship and work opportunity in my life in the quest for new information if I indulged every time I feel the cravings.

I am an information junkie.

Not just trivia and fact kind of stuff. Oh no. Sure, I've got my share of useless facts, dates and figures. However, those things are just the gateway to the kind of information addiction I have. I'm not just a junkie. I'm an information glutton too.

I spent last night investigating aquaponics, hydroponics and sustainable microfarming of tilapia. In depth. I read World Bank reports and booklets, detailed analysis of how it works, reports from different states on pros and cons, long articles on growing and drying duckweed and a lot of hippie-commune kind of stuff on living off the land.

Do I plan to set it up next week? No. OK, well I might start growing some duckweed for my aquariums and possibly talk to a local high school about trying some of this stuff out, but it's on the VERY long "someday" list.

However, I feel extremely enriched for the experience. I learned something new and don't think I could go through a day if I didn't.

Ideas come to us as our brains make connections between things. We see parallels, patterns and ways things relate and are wired to have a momentary spark in our heads when it happens. Actually, the same thing happens with humor. When we're surprised by the connection a good joke makes, we actually use the same terminology that we do when a good idea or concept "clicks" with us: we "get it". That's also why a joke we already know isn't nearly as enjoyable. We already have made that connection and it doesn't cause that spark.

The more things you learn, the more possible points of connection you have in your head and the more likely you are to be able to come up with links between things. I personally also feel that the wider the diversity in these things the better. Too often, people in one field are completely reinventing what is common knowledge in another field.

If good information is out there, regardless of source, steal it. To me, there is no stigmatized source of information. In many cases, the lessons to be learned are added to by seeing the source for what it is (when you learn about human suffering through reading about horrible incidents), but there is good information all over the place to be learned from.

A prime example is a DIY project I've got in the works. See, I have a sensitive nose. I'm the guy in a car full of people who will be drooling because I smell barbeque and 10 minutes later, 3 other people in the car will go, "Do you smell something? Is that barbeque?". Meanwhile, I've figured out they're having pork shoulder with cornbread.

This can be a curse when you have 2 basset hounds that spend all of their time in your home theater. No one else seems to notice (I've specifically asked some people), but the odors in my house bug me. I've used candles, etc., but I want to just get rid of the scent. And, I'm not paying $300 for an air purifier.

So, I went looking. Turns out that the forefront of DIY odor elimination is populated almost entirely by potheads. This is a fact that seems obvious in retrospect, but was an initial surprise to me. After all, who has more incentive to make sure that the smells aren't noticed than someone who can go to prison if someone catches a whiff?

Article after article and forum post after forum post was filled with information on how to completely eliminate the odors using fan-based, activated carbon filtration. Because I know how well activated carbon works to remove impurities and scents from aquarium water, I had the "click" moment and will likely be building a pothead designed air scrubber to get rid of the dog stink in my basement.

I ignored the bad spelling, the bad grammar and the felonious intent of the authors of the information because it was obvious to me that they had motivation to get the information itself right and the information was all I was after. Now, you wouldn't want to do this kind of research at your job or where someone might misconstrue it, but these kinds of sources are all around you.

And, I'm pretty sure they're not taught in formal settings. Mark Twain said something to the effect of, "Never let school get in the way of your education." I'm a big believer, not necessarily in home schooling, but in self-education. Now, go learn something.