One of my favourite hobbies is, and always has been, learning. I felt like one of the few students who actually enjoyed going to school. Everyday offered a new topic, a new challenge, a new opportunity to continue to grow my brain. I wouldn't have explained it this way at the time, but I realize that I was always curious and took my education seriously. Graduating from university didn't mean I lost learning, but for a while I had lost the structure that school gave me. Everything was outlined and I was tested on specific topics, where now it was up to me to figure out how to curate that love in a new way on my own. For a while I just felt lost.
Currently, working long hours and heavily pursuing my fitness goals, it felt like I had no time and was losing myself even more. My drive towards fitness was my first attempt at filling this space, and while new challenges came at work, it didn't feel the same. I felt like I lacked true deep learning. What I craved before was simply not found, and honestly I am still looking for satisfaction today. Thankfully there are a few things that have kept me afloat while I continue to search for a stronger solution.
The first item to note is these blogs I've been creating. I have promised myself that I will continue to write. In school I didn't know why, nor like, that english was a mandatory class each year. I loved math and science, letting the real dopamine flow when my one hour of writing equations lead to a matching answer in the back of the book (sometimes making me want to cry happy tears)! But, when it comes to english, this is where I believe a strong portion of critical, authentic thinking came from. You had to form an opinion, pose an argument, then provide solid evidence backing your claim. That process of finding authentic, personal opinions seems to be a fleeting sight in todays tech world. I don't want to hear one of today's AI shovel sellers tell me that I am falling behind if I am not using these tools (for the 138th week in a row). I would rather read a multi-page document providing a thesis on AI's effects on our brains/cognition today, find REAL opinions and evidence, and build my own thoughts from there.
The second thing is I have strived to continue learning outside of work. I am hoping to dive into the world of electronics soon and learn by the book. Sure, I could use AI to answer my questions and I could get to a functioning outcome quicker, but it would rob me of the purpose behind the task. I don't care to have a working digital stopwatch in five minutes, but I DO care to know how it works, every pin, every microconrtoller operation, and that I am the one who built it (this stopwatch example is my favourite project I built during school, and I still think back to it as if it was yesterday).
So, while I wish I had more answers in the present, I am happy to have clearer insight into where I can go next. Each time I write I feel a tiny bit of satisfaction come back and fill the void. I'm still early in this discovery, but for once I feel like I am headed in the right direction again. I hope some of you can relate and hope you find something to challenge yourself again, like any math test did for us back then.
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