Would you like to learn how to learn anything? Learn to be a calculus master. Learn to play bridge like a professional. I mean learn anything from calculus to molecular biology to how to fix a "running toilet." I can teach you how. It won't be simple. And you will have to put in the work. But first and foremost you must want to learn. You must be willing to put in long hours of trial and error.
What say you? You can not learn calculus. You can not learn to play bridge. Consider this! The Chinese language is considered by many, mostly non-Chinese people, to be the most difficult language to learn. However, Chinese children of average or even below average intelligence learn it fluently. So before I teach you how to learn all these wonderful things, do you really want to learn? Are you genuinely ready to put in the time required.
Learning is work. It requires effort on the part of the learner. Remember, I did not say I could teach you how to learn anything without any effort or time commitment on your part. So again how badly do you want to learn what ever it is you want to learn? Are you committed?
And before I reveal the wisdom of ages--learning techniques that have passed down through the ages from the greatest Jesuit teachers in the world --you must agree to follow my instructions without question. Let me reveal the first clue. The early masters of all of the sciences had one thing in common. The old masters spent hours copying knowledge by hand. There were no copy machines, so if one wished to make 10 copies of a great manuscript, or new technique, each copy was copied by hand. Letter for letter. Word for word. Each excruciating paragraph by each paragraph. The earlier masters learned by copying the works of other great writers. Einstein was a patent clerk in Switzerland. He read and copied the great patent works of others. He read and copied patents. Boring work, but he demonstrated the first principle of learning, that is repetition. Hours of repetition followed by more hours of repetition.
What is the first rule of learning anything? It is REPETITION. REPETITION. REPETITION. If you wish to write like J.D. Salinger, copy The Catcher in the Rye word for word 5 times. Write it out. It will take you a few months, but you will learn his style, his punctuation and also his long sentences.
Chinese children learn Chinese by repetition, just the way we learn English. You learn by repetition. It is basic. What ever you repeat is what you learn. From a bad golf swing to foul language, the more you repeat something the better you get at doing it, whether it is good for you or not. Virtues are learned good habits. What ever you are repeating today will be something you are learning for tomorrow. Get it?
It is so simple. It is so simple. It is not easy. It is not easy.
Keep in touch for the second rule of learning. It is coming soon.
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