The joy of taking a subject about which I know nothing and digging into it to learn what it’s about is much like opening Christmas presents to me. What’s inside is nice, but the anticipation and the unwrapping is what really gets me going.
I live in a world where compilers catch “stupid” mistakes (getting all the grammar and syntax correct), and I can concentrate on the more “interesting” ones (does this thing do what I want it to?). This leads, inevitably, to an iterative approach to problem-solving. Try something, see how it works, tweak it a little, try it again, et cetera.
Come to think of it, it’s probably my history with videogames that leads me to this sort of behavior. When I was young, I discovered that in a game, I could try daring and creative approaches, and if I failed, I was offered an opportunity to try again.
This is a powerful gift.
Of course one is going to make mistakes during the learning process. That’s what learning is. “Flunking” is not representative of the way life works. Which is not to say that one should just ignore grades and the “fancy book learning” offered in school. What I’m saying is that messing up while learning is fine, but if you’re actually learning through the process of failure and reattempt, then both the grades and the knowledge will come.
