Prologue
A few years ago, I came across a book called "Ultralearning" By Scott H. Young. It came with the wonderful idea of everyone being able to learn anything quickly if done right. This idea stuck to me like my shadow.
Eventually, the term "Ultralearner" changed from being a nice concept to a full-fletched dream. But there was still too much chaos in my life. Depression, anxieties, poverty, and a broken heart made every complex endeavor feel like an impossible task. Learning was difficult and getting anything done was a painful process.
Since then, I have looked for Mentors, for guidance and help. Therapy was out of my financial capacities. I began to read into philosophy and self-mastery. Every inspiring idea got me further and step by step I made my way through the dark.
Eventually, a League of Legend coach called Curtis made me jump forward. In his videos, he explained how to keep in control of your state of mind in a context that was familiar to me. He explained it with the game and suddenly, everything I read before on self-mastery made so much sense.
I spent a month clearing up my mind and molding new ideas. In the mid of March, I had a rough form together. I felt strong enough to finally rank up in life. I wanted to become as badass at drawing as Kim Jung Gi already is. I was sure that I found a way, how I will master his skill within two years. This idea and my old dream of becoming an ultralearner fell in love with each other and on the 2nd of April, I contacted Lukas. I wanted him to do video documentation on it. He agreed.
This is how my journey began.
1st Week – Writing Curriculum
I spent the first week preparing my learning path. I did research, thought about potential exercises, the small and big skills, the aspects that are related to my person, how t document and measure my progression, and so on. I will call the outcome of this process my @Curriculum(article). It will be my guide and help me training the right thing on the right day.
Scott H. Young refers to this phase as meta-learning. It is learning how to learn.
Honestly, I have no clue how to write a curriculum so I started collecting all kinds of ideas, grouping and categorizing them.
Eventually I ended up with 4 documents:
- a table with the milestones
- a table with an overview of the skills that I will have to improve in
- a journal that will help me reflect on my process
- a list of all the skills with further explanations and thoughts
I also wrote a script for the Video blog to have something for Lukas and me to think about and mapped out some of the relations between the skills.
2nd Week – Writing Curriculum
I defined my Milestones this week. It does not sound like much, but honestly, this was the most important part of the Project. I already connected them with the skills that I will have to improve upon to pass the Test. Now that I see the road and I know the direction in which I will have to go, I feel confident in my ability to really learn this thing. I believe that knowing what is ahead of you helps with keeping up the motivation to do it. The unknown is scary and can easily hold us back.
I also enjoyed some videos of Kim Jung Gi. It helped me to identify more skills that I overlooked before. I will have to do more research in the future, but I think I already got enough to build a solid "core" of my curriculum. Once I got all my thoughts written down on my World Anvil page, I will start the active learning process as well as gather more information to improve on my path.
Despite that, I made a few very fundamental decisions:
- I will document everything on World Anvil and use its manuscript tool for my journal.
- I will do this with or without cool videos
- I will use Patreon, however, there will be no paywalls.
I can already feel how this project affects my way of thinking. While doodling I am a bit more focused, a bit braver, and a bit more confident. I get more interesting results. At least for me. I assume that I started to change my mind from "I can not do it." to "I will do it."
It does not sound like much, but this is an important turning point in my learning career. It changed my mindset and when I encounter a problem I am more likely to ask myself "How can I solve it in the long term" instead of "why is it not possible to solve it right now".
The coming week will be filled with detailing out the skills and filling this Page. I will finally get into the nuts and bolts of everything. I feel excited. The learning progress feels so right. It feels so much more like me.
There is a nice tickling in the back of my head. I can not wait to really get into this. I want to start, gather my first experiences, and share them. I want to share so many thoughts but right now, they are just thoughts. The Becoming a Gi Project gives it context.
3rd Week – Writing Curriculum
I started to work on some personal skills without a direct relationship to the milestones. My interests accidentally got me there. I spent much time learning and thinking about how to become a better learner. I stumbled across a free "How to learn learning" course by Babara Oakly on Coursera. I feel very positive about it. After 20 Years of struggle in several education systems, I finally start to learn how to learn.
I also found a solution for my Data system. I started to get frustrated by myself forgetting most of the stuff that I learned and that I produced a ton of worthless notes on which I would never look again. But I am optimistic now, that I can minimize the amount of loss in my learnings with my new System. It makes it more comfortable to test myself and practice spaced repetition while being on the go. I describe my new method in the article about my Data system in more detail.
I will have to see if my new system is really as good as it feels right now.
Understanding how learning works lets many things appear as incredibly useful that I had regarded as too much effort in the past. Things like testing myself, flashcards, making readable notes, and spaced repetition.
It was like my opinions on "drilling holes" before inserting a screw in the field of woodworking. I regarded it as an unnecessary effort until I had to rebuild a shelf from scratch because I split the wood with the screws. I had to experience how much more effective it was to drill holes before screwing things together before I would change my views on that subject.
And in the same way, I had to experience how proper learning is done before I could trash my old beliefs. My gut tells me that old beliefs will become a recurring topic and obstacle in this project
I came to realize this week that I still have big issues starting to work and I waste at least one or sometimes more hours a day procrastinating. The Pomodoro Method helps, but there is still some work to be done.
I also came learned that a small nap around the midtime helps my productivity more than just working through. I do not sleep during these 20 to 40 minutes naps. It is just daydreaming and relaxing, but it still helps with my tiredness. I can feel how the tiredness of the day slides off me like an old rug.
I guess that was it for this week. I will spend a lot more time writing the articles on the skills than I expected and it will take several weeks before I can actually start drawing, but I feel good about it. I tried to rush and hurry in the past and it was not very successful, so I will take it slow this time.
There is an old saying from mountaineers:
"Who walks slowly, walks good, and who walks good, walks far."
It seems to me that it does not just apply to climbing mountains, but for all trips into the unknown.
4th Week – Writing Curriculum
This week was filled with work, sadly not for the project. I moved from Sweden to Germany during a pandemic and that ate away huge chunks of my time. But now I am safe and sound in Germany and can continue my work on the project.
I had another call with Lukas. We agreed on a documentary style instead of a Vlog.
My resources in Germany are a bit more limited than I expected and I will not be able to start the test with 2,4m². My first canvas will be significantly smaller, but that shall not prevent me from doing it. I just start small than or I make two drawings or I draw on it in a scroll style. My first super first test will also be on a brown scroll since I do not have a white one available yet.
Not much more to say for this week, I better continue writing on my skills.
5th Week – Writing Curriculum
It is hard for me to believe that 5 weeks are already over and that I am still working on the curriculum. I guess I should finally accept that good work needs time. My desire to start the active drawing part of this project grows with each day but I am also still enjoying the writing process.
The desire to share my thoughts and ideas grows as well. Just a bit more preparation and I can start sharing stuff. None of them are proven by any point and it is just a bunch of ideas based on loose threads that I knotted amateurishly together. But with time the good stuff will prevail and the bad stuff will disappear. So exciting :D
I came across things I never would have found without digging deep into them. My latest jewel is a book called "Drawing from Memory" written by Marie Elisabeth Cavê in 1871. The title might suggest, that it is an ideal addition to my memory drawing skill, this book seems to focuses on our ability to see and observe.
I will look for her other books, once I am through with this one because she has written for people that have to learn without a master. There is a great quote in the preface of the book written by the Revue des Deux Mondes: "The real evil is the incompetent teacher, the unskillful usher of that sanctuary which he will never penetrate(...)". It resonates with me, probably because I am still very frustrated about the low quality of education in my design school. This quote hits the mark. I feel so sorry for my comrades and I hope that those who had poor teachers like me, will eventually break free from the poor teaching and tap into their full potential.
There is sad news. I have no free wall here that is big enough for me to do the test. The only area in which I could improvise a wall is in the mid of the common living area of my shared apartment and I feel bad about blocking that space every weekend and I do not want to be observed yet. Two roommates are extremely critical and I do not want my work to be confronted with them yet. I eventually will have to take this challenge but not now.
I have an also very artsy friend and I might be able to use one of her walls for drawing and recording.
6th Week – Writing Curriculum & First test
The curriculum is still not done. It is so much work but it is absolutely worth it. I still feel good about it, however, money is starting to become a serious problem and I have to think about social media and the presentation of my early work even so I know that I will have to rewrite almost every article in the future. But hey, it is progress and progress takes time.
I achieved today my first awesome achievement. I made my first test. I did not have the full size due to material-based limitations and some roommates were watching me. The beginning was nerve-wracking I really do not like people watching me work. Especially when I do the first few lines. The worst are people asking me questions like "What are you drawing?" That question makes me nervous and rips away my focus. It summons very annoying questions like "why don't you see it, am I drawing so bad?"
I guess I learned today that, whenever someone is doing something in high focus mode or wants to get there, be like air. Just do not ask, do not distract, just let the person do his or her thing. A big distraction in the early stages can rip away 10 or more minutes of focus during the foundation phase. You really stack the odds against the person. I guess asking when the drawing is obviously close to finish is fine or ask anything anytime if you are that person's mentor.
My assumption, that the first big challenge would be just being able to draw for 6 hrs straight did prove correct. My body is not used to draw in a big format and standing for a long time. It is embarrassing for me to admit but I am not physically capable yet of drawing for 5 or 6 hours in a session and I fear, that I am not even close. I just drew for 3 hours and made a big break. So honestly, if I am optimistic, I just made it to halftime.
