The knowledge that each person has always stunned me. I have two ways of learning: from books and from other people. However, we should note that books are products of people. Essentially, we just learn from experience, observation, and thoughts of other human being. What we learn here are vast. Why I keep on learning? I guess it’s a low risk, high return activity to enjoy life.

Learning from Reading Materials

Books

Self-Help

I don’t know if self-help belongs to non-fiction or fiction. I read a few books and see a common pattern. They can be into two categories: motivational, and life improvement.

In the motivational category the authors will tell inspirational stories including words such as “don’t give up, take action,” “dedication,” “focus,” “get going,” “stop procrastination,” or “fearless.” After reading this type of book, you will get a good dose of hope and positivity. This will be enough to keep you pushing through a difficult project or a math problems. My favorite book in this category is “Make Your Bed” from William H. McRaven. This book has helped me carried on in difficult time along with another book “Man search for meaning.” In my opinion, the message would be: things are impermanent. On a good or bad day, take a good shower, put on nice clothes; smile and dive into this world.

The second type of self-help is life improvement books. While motivational books only tell you to consistently working on a current problem, the second type provides you steps to calm yourself. Most of them will focus on effective methods such as breathing and walking mediation. This method is also shown in religion’s books (Tibetan, Zen, or Thich Nhat Hanh). The authors show that by control breathing, we can control the autonomic nervous system in our body to bring relief. Besides, from a book of Dr. Dispenza, we learn about visualization practice. Which is similar to a few practices from Tibetan Buddhism. The effectiveness of visualization practices are debating; however, athletes have been trained on using visualization methods such as PETTLET [3].

Moving on from esoteric practice, we also learn to declutter things from Marie Kondo. We learn Minimalism to simplify things in an overloaded information world.

Non-Fiction

I love non-fiction books because they provide facts and practical information. However, it takes time to understand, and sometimes I need to write ideas down and find connections among them on a piece of paper. Many authors write very well and entertaining. Books that implied science in story telling (science fiction) is an easy reading option.

My favorite books in the non-fiction category are Breath, and Code: the hidden language of computer hardware and software. Additionally, If I really want to learn a specific topic for example machine learning, I would read textbooks instead because the materials have more depth.

Fiction

Looking back, I still remembered stories from fiction books that I read a while ago. When I was a kid, our school did not have reading program as in North America school system. I was afraid of reading long text until one day I picked up “Robinson Crusoe”. Laying down on a hammock at my grandma’s house, I read 1/3 of the book in one sitting. Then, I read a few teenager books from Nguyen Nhat Anh, a well-known author in Vietnam.

My reading habit is formed by my brother because he read a lot of books back then. So, I just mimicked on whatever he did or read. I only develop the love of reading fiction recently during winter and my time pursuing Master degree in Waterloo. Back then, when I was an undergrad, I filled my desk with only non-fiction books, especially circuit and signal.

In my opinion, fiction is better than psychology books for learning human social interaction and reasoning. Because fiction books show us both contexts and behaviors at the same time. One downside is that, fiction book is under writer’s perspective; however, we can argue that, the writer may inherent, or be influenced by the environment. Those aspects help enlarge the write’s perspective. While reading, we can position ourselves in that circle.

My recent favorite book is “Flower for Algernon” and “The devotion of suspect X”.

Children’s books

Recently, I find joy reading Matilda from Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake. The books make me smile quietly on the bus.

Learning from Anyone

Learn from skillful people

When a person has experience in an area, that means trial and error process have been done. That skillful person knows what work best and what to avoid. However, we tend to have bounded rationality [1]. What work best for one does not mean work best in any case or for other people.

As an engineering student, we will develop a set of skills and useful notes. Those are considered as tools and are added into our mental toolbox gradually. A skillful person needs to look around to find a way to improve the current toolbox by adding or removing tools. The ideal of mental toolbox is influenced by Charlie Munger [2].

Removing tools is important, as well as adding more tools. Adding tools will help us solve the problem at hand in a short time. However, we spend less time to think creatively or to learn the fundamental. With less but useful tools in the toolbox, it takes more time to build a product. But in the end, you will understand more about the product and process. Additionally, it will reduce mental fatigue in deciding what tools to use.

As a learner when we ask a skillful person, the best way is to show respect, thanks for trial and error they have been working on. We also need to ponder if the skill we learn really improve our process, so we can add or remove it from our toolbox.

I have a habit of solving problem head-on. The reason is probably a reward feeling after a problem is being solved. After reflect on many events in the past, I noticed that most of my questions are being solved either by my team or me. We often see the answer while writing the problem description. A problem description need to show in away that the other person who did not work directly on a project, was able understand, and visualize the process vividly. That process required many illustrations and descriptive language. After writing the problem description, an answer might be emerged. As a lesson, I’ve learned to wait before asking or answering questions. The first step is to write problem description with detail procedures to reproduce the error.

Learn from Young Generation

Young generation are passionate and have many non-conventional ideas that we can listen to. However, not a lot of them start writing and publishing at young age. In general, not a lot of people are sharing ideas in written form even when they get older. So talking is the only way to convey ideas.

I like talking to my nephew. One day he asked me what were his favorite planets. I had no idea, so I asked if the number was even or odd. It was even. Then, I guessed given the nephew age and even number, the answer should be less than ten. Additionally, this kid liked different things and able to remember many flags from different countries. So, I guessed the number of planets were eight. Surprisingly, it was correct; however, planets he mentioned were not in the solar system. The first planet was J1407b which I had not heard before. I was amazed that how kid learn from many sources such as YouTube, apps now a day.

I also learned more about emotion intelligent from the young. Gen-Z is more expressive in terms of emotions. It is quite pleasant to sit in the lab and chat with them about what they think of the economy, current state of technology, or just how to order steep tea that like boba tea.

I was young once, it was difficult to be heard. But I see, the current generation becomes better somehow.

Learn from The Elder

The elder have wisdom. They also love to tell their stories if we ask. I hope I have more time to spend listening to their stories.

Learning while Playing

I ran with my friend yesterday, and we talked about asthma. I did not read about before, but I always thought that asthma was a result of weak lungs. It turned out asthma was caused by inflammation in the airway. This one event led me to forgo a long binding concept to learn a new one.

I’m glad I have friends around. Each of them has a niche interest in something. One of them like collecting hand watches. He can sit and tell me the mechanism of each watch. How Grand Seiko is different from Seiko. How Japanese watches brand competed in a well established section in Europe. It is quite fascinating to learn how the Spring Drive mechanism works in the Grand Seiko. (Here is a brief description: The spring drive combines both mechanical and quartz in one system. A mechanical spring will power the quartz and an IC via a magnetic coil. Since the quartz is more accurate, it is used as a feedback device. If the frequency of the spring is too high, the IC will send signal to the coil to reduce the rotation. What a neat hybrid system.)

Conclusion

I have kept this note for a while; now, I want to share and receive any interesting feedback from the community. So, yeah, keep on learning.

Reference:

[1] I learned this term from prof. Seyed Majid Zahedi class ECE750/493 (Game-Theoretic Foundations of Multi-agent Systems)

[2] Mental Models Archives - Farnam Street

[3] The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists.

— SP —