Say you are ignorant, you want to learn something. Mathematics, computer science, chemistry, engineering, or you just simply want to learn to build a rocket.

I’m usually against textbooks when you are trying to achieve something that is business related, but if your objective is to learn, textbooks are pretty sweet. I don’t think people nowadays put the same amount of effort into writing textbooks anymore, there’s just something super fun about the textbooks that were written pre-2010 that can’t be found in books that are written now. But it’s okay, just pick a book that’s popular and start reading. You will need a lot of scratch papers regardless of the discipline you are getting yourself into.

You will probably not enjoy it most of the time but you are also quite likely to find the learning process fresh and interesting. Since you don’t need to keep a pace, you have plenty of time to spend on actually understanding the stuff. Try to think and ask questions. ChatGPT helps. Email professors from universities if you really need help, they usually reply. Online forums are less active now but there are some really great answers on there.

Oh, also, textbooks are usually better than non-fiction books but it depends on what you want I guess.

Once you get yourself up to a certain level, start reading research papers, it might be helpful.

Yeah that’s it, it also demonstrates why you don’t need institutions to really learn things. You are not getting the degree or credentials but if you want to learn, you can.

Man, the kind of world we live in.