The first thing worth noting is that, as you mentioned, school is sort of an artificial environment which often penalizes following your intrinsic curiosity. Taking that into account, I’m still quite uncertain about the degree to which I’m able to develop expertise purely through intrinsic motivation.
On the one hand, I’ve seen some comments / posts on LessWrong / Twitter arguing some subset of:
For intellectual activities like math & programming, if you’re not motivated by curiosity you’re doing it wrong.
Children naturally master things they’re curious about but then school ruins that drive by forcing you to do things you don’t want to do.
On the other hand, if you read the “expertise literature” (Ericsson on Deliberate Practice, The Mundanity of Excellence), there’s a big focus on consistently doing uncomfortable things that you’re not going to be intrinsically motivated to do in the moment. Now, this literature tends to focus on more skill-based, often physical, “rote” activities like swimming, violin, etc. Chess is probably the closest thing to an intellectual pursuit that’s been studied by academics through the lens of deliberate practice. That said, Cal Newport (a Computer Science professor and sort of pop science writer), has written extensively about his belief and experience applying deliberate practice to knowledge work and I think he makes good arguments that fit with my personal experience.
Finally, my personal experience has also provided mixed evidence for the two conflicting hypotheses. I do learn much better when I’m intrinsically curious about what I’m learning and as a result spend time idly thinking about it. But, I also find that in order to really learn something challenging well, especially early on, I sometimes need to force myself to sit my butt down at the chair and practice.
As a concrete example, I used to not be that intrinsically interested in algorithms as an area beyond the basic ones that everyone knows about (BFS, DFS, LRU cache, etc.). As a result, when I decided I wanted to prepare for interviews before looking for a new job, I mostly forced myself to sit down and grind through a bunch of algorithms-y problems. This was not that fun at first because it was quite hard and even when I was curious about the answers to, in particular, the harder problems, I wouldn’t be able to get them or would take a long time to. Also, it was originally driven by extrinsic motivation. However things changed as time went on. Once I reached a certain level of proficiency, I grew to like practicing and learning about algorithms more because I worried less about constantly failing. My two take-aways from this experience were:
A sense of inadequacy is a big obstacle to intrinsic motivation.
It’s much easier to be curious when you’re already somewhat competent.
In the end, I think both the “perfect practice makes perfect” and “harness the desire to know” perspectives have something to contribute towards developing expertise, but I personally am not yet at a stage where I can learn really hard things without doing some amount of “forcing” myself.
I just re-read your post one more time and want to comment that I can strongly relate to this section in particular:
The best I’ve ever been able to do is to relate to my studies a little bit like it’s a sport.
I get into the zone. I see how quickly, how effortlessly, how accurately I can answer problems. How fast can I read this chapter? What’s the craziest organic molecule I can draw and then name?
I try to invent my own problems. I rewrite passages in my own words. I don’t just try to answer the exercises and remember the concepts. I try to remember what the exercise questions were, or even to make up my own exercise questions. It’s the next best thing to tutoring someone else.
I’m not being guided by curiosity. I’m being motivated by competitiveness and restlessness and the desire to test myself, to push the limits. When I’m at my best in my studies, I’m acting more like a fiercely competitive soccer player, or maybe like the stereotype of a hot-shot fighter pilot.
Great post!
The first thing worth noting is that, as you mentioned, school is sort of an artificial environment which often penalizes following your intrinsic curiosity. Taking that into account, I’m still quite uncertain about the degree to which I’m able to develop expertise purely through intrinsic motivation.
On the one hand, I’ve seen some comments / posts on LessWrong / Twitter arguing some subset of:
For intellectual activities like math & programming, if you’re not motivated by curiosity you’re doing it wrong.
Children naturally master things they’re curious about but then school ruins that drive by forcing you to do things you don’t want to do.
On the other hand, if you read the “expertise literature” (Ericsson on Deliberate Practice, The Mundanity of Excellence), there’s a big focus on consistently doing uncomfortable things that you’re not going to be intrinsically motivated to do in the moment. Now, this literature tends to focus on more skill-based, often physical, “rote” activities like swimming, violin, etc. Chess is probably the closest thing to an intellectual pursuit that’s been studied by academics through the lens of deliberate practice. That said, Cal Newport (a Computer Science professor and sort of pop science writer), has written extensively about his belief and experience applying deliberate practice to knowledge work and I think he makes good arguments that fit with my personal experience.
Finally, my personal experience has also provided mixed evidence for the two conflicting hypotheses. I do learn much better when I’m intrinsically curious about what I’m learning and as a result spend time idly thinking about it. But, I also find that in order to really learn something challenging well, especially early on, I sometimes need to force myself to sit my butt down at the chair and practice.
As a concrete example, I used to not be that intrinsically interested in algorithms as an area beyond the basic ones that everyone knows about (BFS, DFS, LRU cache, etc.). As a result, when I decided I wanted to prepare for interviews before looking for a new job, I mostly forced myself to sit down and grind through a bunch of algorithms-y problems. This was not that fun at first because it was quite hard and even when I was curious about the answers to, in particular, the harder problems, I wouldn’t be able to get them or would take a long time to. Also, it was originally driven by extrinsic motivation. However things changed as time went on. Once I reached a certain level of proficiency, I grew to like practicing and learning about algorithms more because I worried less about constantly failing. My two take-aways from this experience were:
A sense of inadequacy is a big obstacle to intrinsic motivation.
It’s much easier to be curious when you’re already somewhat competent.
In the end, I think both the “perfect practice makes perfect” and “harness the desire to know” perspectives have something to contribute towards developing expertise, but I personally am not yet at a stage where I can learn really hard things without doing some amount of “forcing” myself.
I just re-read your post one more time and want to comment that I can strongly relate to this section in particular:
ETA: started typing up thoughts, but accidentally published early. May finish typing up thoughts later.
Thoughts much appreciated :) !