How to Understand Things
Intellectual habits
The review phase is critical to deepen your understanding.
Reflect on important ideas and key moments.
Find better ways to solve the problem.
Extend your understanding by generating new questions.
You need to have the will to to think which requires efforts.
Have strong inquiring mind.
Generate concrete examples to understand problems and concepts.
Make something tangeble and visible to play with to understand the concept.
Don't be afraid to look stupid.
You gotta be honest to yourself.
Go slow.
Read slowly, think slowly.
Think about the question yourself before reading a bunch of stuff about it.
Before studying something, think about what you already know.
Before reading something, generate your important questions and ponder them first.
Nothing beats direct experience.
Get the data yourself and reason up from there.
Just reading popular books or news articles may make you stupider by filling your mind with stories that don't represent your own synthesis.
Understanding is not a binary yes or no. It has layers of depth.
Never be overconfident. Keep researching.