Self-Improvement - The Network of Ideas

An idea that I have always value was learning how to learn. Much like choosing “15% extra experience” skill early in a game in order to time-effectively level up. Imagine a game where you leveled up in 100 experience (exp) point increments and that you could gain 100 exp points in 10 minutes. You would level up at a pace of 1 level per 10 minutes and in 100 minutes you would be level 11. Now say if you selected the “15% extra experience” skill in the game when you reached level 2, you would take approximately 88 minutes to get from level 1 to level 11.

Although the real world does not exactly function like that but I think you got the concept. One of these “learning skills” much like the “15% extra experience” skill that I have figured out is what I call the network of ideas. I found that if I wanted to remember a broad range of topics and concepts at a time I would need to attach them to “nodes”, exactly like a node in a network. If I said, the word classroom, you would most likely think of teachers, students, chalkboard (or ink board depending on how old you are), pencils, notebooks, etc. Every time I thought about a “node” it would link to it a range of ideas. I would then write these “nodes” down in order to reflect on them when I wanted to.

One of these nodes are people such as authors, scientist and philosophers. Occasionally I would discover important ideas that had a board range and depth that I struggle to remember such as Bitcoin. I would then find prominent figures in the field to read, watch and learn from. In the case of Bitcoin, one of the names noted down would be Andreas Antonopoulos. Every time I saw his name, a network of information would stem from his “node” (his name). I would remember him talking about the lightning network, altcoins, his perception of the banking institutions, conveniences and securities of Bitcoin… the list goes on.

I found this means of remembering ideas particularly helpful. It is easy to get caught up with life’s mundane worries (such as work, rent and cleaning) and forget about ideas learnt. If I found myself being drawn back to concepts I struggle with, I would look at these prominent names that I had written down to give me a flashback-esque recount of the ideas I had learnt or listened to.

My compiled list of names have come a long way since I started doing this. Consisting of individuals from a wide range of specialties. Names such as Chirstopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, John Von Neumann, Ray Kurzweil and Ayn Rand to name a few. I found the occasional looking at all the written names very helpful in solidifying the concepts learnt over time and pushing them to the forefront of my thoughts. As the names, ideas and concepts piled on, I found the ideas from these individual “nodes” intersecting more frequently, creating a large network of ideas that is my world view.

Comments and criticism welcomed and encouraged!