While out on a long walk the other day, I was thinking about World of Warcraft and “Mythic+” dungeons. Specifically, I was trying to figure out how best to prepare: should I read more about how to optimize my Resto Druid, watch more videos about dungeon routes, maybe something else? Given that this season contains eight unique dungeons, all that research is going to take a while. Eventually I thought: maybe I just need to queue up, dive in, and figure it out like a “bull in a learning shop”. I laughed out loud when that phrase came to me. Despite sounding so silly, it represents a very real and applicable concept.
In my experience, true learning comes from a consistent resonance between reading and building. They are both important and I worry that sustained and meaningful progress can’t be made without both. With only reading, your ability to apply the learning is merely theoretical. With only building, how can you know if you are progressing toward higher skill or just moving in circles? Note that reading could also mean any input-focused activity like watching videos.
Sometimes, I get caught up on reading for too long: consuming books and videos but not taking the time to apply the concepts. I think this is mostly due to fear: fear of failing, breaking something, getting frustrated, or feeling lost. However, building is always necessary and you have to find the discipline to just do it. Get in there, thrash around, break stuff, struggle, but gain that practical insight. Fire up the editor and just write some Clojure: you’ve read enough books. Just queue for the dungeon and figure it out: you’ve watched enough videos.
The cost of failure in these cases is often nothing more than a bruised ego. Despite that, you should remember: you can’t be good at something until you’ve been bad at it for a long time (10,000 hours, etc). Don’t let fear of failure prevent you from trying, because you will fail. We all have.
P.S. I hope this post didn’t come off as too motivational or preachy. I mostly wrote it as advice for myself: to shift my learning balance away from reading and more toward building. Fear of the unknown continues to get in my way and is probably the thing that holds me back the most.