[Kuiper]

I'm not sure I relate to Paul Graham's experience of finding being a "noob" unpleasant -- if anything, I find it's the opposite, because any time you're a "noob," there's so much low-hanging fruit to pick.

New city? There's a bunch of cool/fun things to do that you haven't tried yet. New hobby? Hop onto Youtube and there's hundreds of hours of "explainer" videos made by passionate hobbyists looking to share their favorite parts of that hobby with you. New to a particular field? Other people have probably already done the work of curating the 1% most interesting, important, and fascinating things to learn about. It's easy to feel like you're making progress when you're starting from zero.

I recently bought a guitar and started playing Rocksmith -- think Guitar Hero, but with a real guitar hooked up to your computer, with learning tools designed to help you learn how to play songs of your choosing, along with lessons covering everything from how to play power chords to the very basics of how to hold your guitar when sitting vs standing. I'm a total noob when it comes to playing guitar, but I've enjoyed every part of my time with Rocksmith, from the very first moment I plugged in my guitar and let the software step me through the process of tuning it.

I've found it incredibly edifying largely because the experience of picking up an instrument and learning how to play it has reminded me of what it's like to learn a completely new skill from scratch -- I think spending a week with Rocksmith has not only taught me guitar basics, but also given me a refresher course on how to learn a new skill.

In fact, I wonder if this can lead to its own problem -- someone who gets too much pleasure from the experience of being a noob and may turn into a dilettante, moving from hobby to hobby without ever taking the time to spend years cultivating a deep expertise. Which, I suppose, is fine on a certain level, but there are definitely times when I've procrastinated and hidden from the intimidating prospect of achieving mastery in a field where I already have a lot of experience, and instead spent that time venturing into new fields where there's still low-hanging fruit for me to pick.

[pigscantfly]

To add my two cents, I've studied half a dozen languages over my life and managed to become fluent in three, give or take. My favorite part of the process is always the first few months, when new concepts come the quickest and one sees major progress made every day.

In the end, I think the learning process for almost any skill follows an S-curve, and that initial takeoff is always the most intoxicating period for me. That said, I've spoken about this with others in my classes, and most of them find this early period more daunting and relish later stages, when their footing has become solid.

[porknubbins]

Yeah I definitely relate to this enjoying the rush of so many new concepts falling into place and making sense. That said I realized there is another level of enjoying a kind of mastery or advanced skill. For me theres this huge intermediate desert thats hard to cross its like first 6 months - enjoy noob gains, 6mo - 5 years kind of sucking, and after many years finally starting to get some new insights at most people never get. I’ve only ever managed it once too and getting paid definitely helps.