How to study

At some point in the life of every academician or practician, academics becomes not the act of innovation and smartness, but the act of grit, persistence and knowledge. Being patient enough to read is a huge virtue. In this article, I will reflect on the meaning of study and the value of such a meaning.

To study is to engage in voluntary, citational thought.

It has to be voluntary because if it is not, it is a volatile habit that survives as long as the enforcing agent survives. Further, involuntary compulsion becomes a source of great trauma when the enforcing agent expires but the cause reinitiates.

It has to be citational because man's potential of creativity is only finite, and the only way to continue education is to intake what others have to say. Intake does not have to mean ingest, belief blindly. Every academic discipline is some branch of the universal act of pursuing truth, and with how invariably we err, to engage in academic conversation must mean to dissect and criticize.

Like the people of privileged households, who sit down with patient passion before the dimly lit study table, secluding themselves and a book from the rest of the world, who read lines with care but also build presumptions, opinions and justifications as well as disproofs -- because ultimately they think that their opinion matters in this world; esteem is the biggest motivator -- one must read.

There is nothing one does not understand. Hidden beneath every cloak of non-understanding, of confusion, is a person's refusal to accept something. There are 2 ways to fight this situation. If one values ego, self-authority and creativity, then it is obligatory that they sit down in regular intervals to study on their own. To garner as much intel about their domain and to build as many presumptions as needed to be in even marginally more agreement before the next lecture. The second way, however, is to act in belief. To hold the idea of disbelief buried in one's heart but act out the algorithm like a believer -- and investigate what logic goes into believing the content concerned. Oftentimes, ignorance is best illuminated by temporary cognitive dissonance, because the resolution the mind seeks and eventually finds cements itself as the intuition behind acceptance.

So there is even more reason to have the esteem to read and the courage to speak up about one's readings when the time comes. Eventually all knowledge is verified by external approval -- it is like a socio-economic axiom necessary for knowledge to be defined.