[jckzlg]

I have struggled with similar issues for years. I have a kinda weird take on the topic, but I think it might be helpful. I think the “persistence paradigm” we’re living through causes these sort of psychological short circuits where we forget that what we’re doing is building our minds and not building some external edifice or monument that we can point to as our “knowledge”. There is never going to be a moment where you can point at your stack of notebooks or answers to textbook questions or list of books you’ve read and say “I’ve done it, I’ve learned so much”. The widespread behavior of persisting moments of our lives out into cyberspace has sort of bled into our psychologies. I think this is partially why you see so many people struggling with these sorts of questions.

So the short answer I think is to focus on a process of daily improvement instead of some systematic program for self study. Just read 60 minutes a day, journal 30 minutes a day, and place absolutely no restrictions on the subject matter. For a while I also burned my notebooks every 30 days, that was really helpful. These days I actually do record a lot of my thoughts but I try not to get bogged down too often in the systemization of the practice.