After the First 6 Months

After the first 6 months or so, as I started to internalize some of the knowledge I was absorbing, I realized I started to lose some of the details.

I would forget some formulas, or some more complex concepts and would require referencing, which increased the turn around time for making connections, and cut down on the rate I was producing more questions. In essence, it made me less productive.

Of course, I couldn’t be expected to retain all this information. Or. Could I. Could I level up even my own expectations?

I began to write down all the concepts I considered foundational, and after some time, I came up with a strategy.

Using the sheets as a reference, I explained each concept to myself every day. Not memorized words, also it ended up being similar from day to day, but the concepts themselves.

There was always the temptation to skip some things, or say, “Yeah, I get that, moving on”.

But no. That would defeat the point. I had to patiently explain the concepts, including my opinions, and my related theories.

The sheets grew over time. Algebra I, II, Geometry, Trigonometry.

After Trigonometry, I started Statistics. It became clear I was missing something, which led me to a new discovery: Discrete Mathematics and Linear Algebra.

There was actually an old course that I found from years before that taught counting. Just counting. And it was fascinating. As was Linear Algebra. You can model anything that you can represent with numbers? That…that…changes everything. Or maybe it’s actually what everything else has been up until this time, too. I mean, what is math, really? It’s just structured thought. People don’t get that.

Everyone is good at math. Even you. Do you know how I know that? Because you can understand this. Because you can form a sentence. You are using structured thought.

Linear Algebra changed a lot for me. It changed everything forward and backward.

And then I moved on to Statistics, and finally, Algorithms, which is what started this game in the first place.

And it was…interesting. But not as interesting as Linear Algebra.

By this time I had maybe 20 pages, packed to the brim with writing of concepts that I had to explain to myself every day. It took hours. It was too much.

So I punted a bit.

3 times a week.