Plunder with thunder

I work in an industry where knowledge is, most of the time, valued over diplomas and certifications, so it has been relatively easy to thrive without a degree. That does not mean that I haven’t received my fair share of “you have to be an actual engineer” and “I don’t think you are qualified to do that”. I did have the option to finish my computer science studies, but as I was already working in the industry I found myself with less and less time to study and had to make a decision. I ended up quitting my studies to… have time to learn.

For the record

This article is heavily based on James Bach’s Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar. A book about following your passions and taking ownership of your education that you are taking too long to start reading.

You won’t find here a rant against higher studies and formal education: If you finish a computer science degree, you will definitely benefit from it and quitting will mean leaving certain gaps in your knowledge that you will spend years trying to close. It has been damn worth it for me, but it might not be for you. This text is meant for those of you that are following formal education and feel that they spend way too much time studying without learning anything they actually want to learn. It’s about taking ownership and that means accepting that you, and only you, will live with the consequences of your decision.

The path of the plunderer

Choosing a road not in the maps

As a knowledge buccaneer, I don’t strictly follow a manual, not even Jame’s (although I love the terminology he laid out). If you read his book, you’ll find that he focuses on taking advantage of the way his brain tends to deviate from the well-known road.

Playing with the cards you’ve been dealt

My mind, on the other hand, tends to deviate to pleasures that I ultimately find void of joy and that needs a carrot/stick approach in order to tame the beast inside. It happens often that when I see something shiny to plunder, like machine learning, blockchain or even open auth, that I have to tell my brain to shut itself and stop chasing cars. That’s not because those are topics I should not learn about, I should definitely learn about open auth, just not now.

Thing is, I am obsessive and there are many other things I want to learn, some of them build synergy with the aspect of myself I’m trying to improve at the moment.

I’m learning functional programming in Kotlin right now, using Arrow. For that, I’m in the middle of reading two books, one on Kotlin and another one on Category theory. The funny thing about this is that I keep reading mentions on how this and that monad is implemented on F# and, having specialized in Microsoft technologies for years, I spin up Visual Studio and before you notice I’m further ahead in an F# book than I’m on the other ones.

That’s the softest case I’ve had of that, as learning about F# deeply relates to the work I’ve been doing in Kotlin, but I’ve done far worse, I’ve never regretted learning anything, but I’ve spent days mastering a video game that I absolutely abhorred all the time I played it.

I’ve successfully handled that by always being mid-read of several books that are categorically different: One fantasy novel, something on philosophy, two or three technical books on different topics and then a long comic book (I refuse to call them graphic novels).

The other issue is that, as a human being with an ego, I have a tendency to think that I know what I’m doing, which leads me to try to solve problems that a lot of people, smarter than me, have solved already.

In the end, I bargain with myself, I offer childish me a treat, be it playing a video game or learning about controlling a robotic arm with the raspberry PI I bought with that idea in mind, but that I only use as a retro gaming station.

And then I binge watch Netflix’s “The Witcher” and I remember that I have a draft of a fantasy novel that I never finished. I’m completing the schema in parallel while writing this articles. Who knows, I might write the next big fantasy series as a result.

On the good side, I’m older and wiser now and I realize I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time. So instead of trying to wing writing it, like I did with my first (commercially failed, I can’t even find a link to it anymore) book, I’m going to follow a system, something to make my life easier in the process.

Same thing as I’m doing in my career, I’m seeking mentorship in the areas that interest me and I try to build a syllabus of things I want to learn and prioritize them based on how much I think they will help me and if I don’t know, I ask.

I’m not even in command of myself, but I can trick me into being better and I won’t ever, ever, ever hesitate again when it comes to ask for counsel coming from the experience of others that are ahead of me.

Should you try any of this? I don’t know, I’m only quite sure that you should not try all of this at the same time. You are not me, hence all that works for me is unlikely to do so for you. Maybe you need to finish your formal studies, perhaps you should follow every side scent you find in your way.

The only one thing I’m convinced you are going to need is the skill to recognize situations where you are not doing yourself any favors, to be honest about how good your ideas have turned out to be for you. Be empiric about your life, make sure you are working in your best interest. Unless you are OK with that, of course, if you are, keep going, it’s your life and you are the only one that will live with all the consequences of your actions, after all.

Header photo by Dimitri Svetsikas