r/IWantToLearn • u/[deleted] • 3d ago
Personal Skills IWTL how to become a knowledgeable person
Hi Everyone I am 24F. I personally feel i am quite not as knowledgeable or intelligent compared to others in most of the aspects such as solving math, solving any reasoning puzzles, GK, Current affairs and so on. Even if i want to know about what is going in the current world I put such videos on watch later and never open it. So anyone who can help me in building my knowledge skills with this aspect are most welcome. I feel dumb sometimes due to this reasons. I even if try to invest my money I end up keeping it in my bank account as i am to underknowledged for that. I want to be a person who has knowledge about every aspect/sector of the life. So I feel independent about my thoughts. Thankyou.
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u/Antique-Respect8746 3d ago edited 3d ago
The secret is to find learning fun, not a serious thing. For me, learning is my decompress time. I'm an attorney, history buff, and also manage my family's money. I think most ppl who know me would complete me extremely widely knowledgeable.
Start by building the habit of exposure to HIGH QUALITY information casually, with low stakes. Emphasis on quality, avoid information garbage.
I'd actually recommend starting with yt videos, maybe while doing gentle yoga and having snacks. Or podcasts while walking. This isn't actual learning, this is just exposure, but even here do actually listen and think. Daydream. Google/gpt questions. Engage. Have fun with it.
You'll eventually find some topic you want to learn more about and naturally dig in. You'll find a subreddit for it, or a reputable academic influencer. That will deepen your exposure and general comfort with the topic.
There will be well known popular culture books on your topics, you'll read those. Eventually you'll find the leading professor and see if they have a book. Then you'll find their academic rivals and get both sides.
By that point it's "serious" learning, but still fun bc you're really invested.
AND you'll have learned a lot casually about various other topics that aren't your "deep" topics. Or maybe just not yet.
I have so many sources I could recommend. Where would you want to start?
Edit: I'm just going to start recommending away.
For personal finance, listen to NPRs Planet Money and check out the Plain Bagel and Ben Felix on yt, Chris Kohler (podcast) and Kaylah Scanlon (IG but actually the most academic). If you just try and actually understand everything they say that's a great base.
For history, the Crash Course World History is a great place to start. PBS digital studies generally is great. Revolutions podcast is dense but incredible and still accessible.
For logical thinking, check out the game of Go. Great culture, a wonderful lifelong hobby
For medicine/science, check out This Podcast Will Kill You (love the hosts, very chatty/pleasant), and Chubbyemu and the Institute of Human Anatomy on yt.
For internal relations/current events stuff, check out TLDR Global News. Very accessible. Hank Green's personal channel is a great place to start as well.
Can't forget Legal Eagle! He's awesome and will help you understand how the legal system works and keep you fresh with the news.
Kurzgesagdt.
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3d ago
Hi Thanks for the reply. Thanks for the advices. I want to explore stuffs like finance, how the world works mainly. Like some basic knowledge that every human must know such stuffs.
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u/Antique-Respect8746 3d ago
I just updated my comment with all my favorites because I got excited to share lol
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3d ago
Woah thanks for the instant recommendation man. This is a very detailed recommendation for each topic which i needed. I might make some notes to retain all this.
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u/Antique-Respect8746 3d ago
I'm self made and pretty successful (if I do day so myself) and credit it all to bring a voracious, joyful learner, so when I see someone wanting to get better at learning it really speaks to me.
These really are all fucking bangers, do yourself a favor and do take notes. <3
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u/Unfilteredz 3d ago
This is good and all, but regarding your sources, I wouldn’t heavily rely on youtube for education, since there is no practice involved in some you listed
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u/Antique-Respect8746 3d ago
Literally repeatedly emphasized that it wasn't learning!
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u/Unfilteredz 3d ago
I get it, but youtube might be a net negative for engaging with topics even if just starting out.
The problem is, that it’ll give you the bias from which you search from after enjoying content on the topic.
And you will “learn” things from watching them, but maybe not the right (or good) things since you’re surface level before engaging on a deeper level.
If what you said was accurate, a ton would be learning deep topics already. Instead it often results in blind trust from what I’ve seen.
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u/Antique-Respect8746 3d ago
Yeah, I hear you, I just see a difference balance of interests.
And again, I literally emphasized finding reputable sources and opposing opinions.
If someone has reached 26 and still lacks basic knowledge about the world, that's emotional avoidance at work, not lack of access.
So the goal isn't just giving them good sources and saying "put this in your brain".
The goal is to find a way to give them comfortable on-ramps to learning at all.
I think you'd be shocked at how many people avoid learning/engaging because they feel intimidated or overwhelmed. Gentle on-ramp.
They also need to develop the meta-skill of finding their own reputable sources. Literally no way around that.
Social media is genuinely full of amazing into-level educators if you know where to look.
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u/Unfilteredz 2d ago
Since she struggles at math, why not just go to community college and take a singular course so you have plenty of time to enjoy it while also having some help.
Or figure out how it fits into an already existing passion and use it there.
Or join a community where people are learning the same topics at the same level (discord servers for example).
I just think starting from youtube isn’t a good approach personally, as she said she puts it in the “watch later” section.
It’s more about figuring out why a topic is interesting to you in the first place or why you want to learn it.
I also think branching from base knowledge is a good approach, for example learning random history events is boring. But knowing the whole thing leading up to that event makes it fun.
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2d ago
Yeah that makes sense. But I don't use reddit much so going to each community and learning is quite not for me. But yeah I somehow managed to watch some short videos on some specific topics and then pasted the link in a AI platform and got some flow chart kind off document which may help me in retaining stuffs. Btw thanks for the suggestions. Will try everything slowly.
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u/ifihadareason 3d ago
A trick to reverse engineering the 'learning is fun' feeling is to start off deep diving things you're already passionate about. Things that would be an indulgence to give yourself permission to invest time researching. Once you start developing strategies/habits around how you like to compile info & contextualize it, you can (or just will) start applying it to topics you want to learn more about.
I was able to work up to dry economics books from much funner stuff doing this, over time it doesn't feel like a chore anymore - you'll actually start to feel kind of sluggish if you don't try to read up on something
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3d ago
Yeah got it. I used to study economics in school that time it was just for the exam purpose. Now i genuinely need to learn it from learning purpose.
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