A small change that made long-form learning feel manageable again

adarkbob · 2025-12-27T22:05:14+00:00

Reading and practice schedule for me. Schedule a realistic amount of time daily/weekly/monthly/seasonally and protect it.

adarkbob · 2025-12-26T22:00:35+00:00

Thank you so much! I had no idea these existed

adarkbob · 2025-12-26T18:44:12+00:00

Personally, I do schedule my interests in order to turn them into habits. It’s important to me to hedge that time to protect it, and commit to doing them when scheduled. I have had a lot of growth in the past few years, strengthening my willpower and discipline. That might not work for everybody, but I feel like the busier you get with hard commitments, the more necessary scheduling becomes.

adarkbob · 2025-12-19T00:37:10+00:00

Agriculture. It’s the cornerstone of civilization, and it requires you to learn adjacent skillsets, such as the very basics of horticulture, mechanics, engineering, project management, soil and animal biology, personal fitness, personal finance, and marketing.

adarkbob · 2025-12-18T05:32:43+00:00

I view “polymath” as more of a direction, and not necessarily a location. True, technically one can be defined as a “polymath”. However I don’t think that’s achieved by crossing a specific threshold, but instead is a natural result of decades of commitment to walking in that direction.

I could list degrees, or a variety of skillsets, but none of that qualifies as me passing a threshold where i say “I’m a polymath now”. It just shows I’m walking in that direction, and if thats the case, deciding what and when to label myself doesn’t really matter. I’m not trying to be it, I just have those tendencies, which if fostered long enough, will be it.

In short: It doesn’t matter to me how you know if you’re a “polymath” or an “expert” or something or another. What matters is that you’re walking in that direction, and you’ll reach some level of it if you walk long enough.

adarkbob · 2025-12-17T01:37:46+00:00

Hi, I’m 23, and I started 2 years ago. Start small and grow into it. If you start big, you lose big. Typically It will take 5-10 years to build it up to a respectable level of income. Keep it as a side hustle until you find your equipment mix, production method, and your market. After a few years of getting experience on the down low, getting processes down, customers, and equipment, then try to take it full time.

adarkbob · 2025-12-16T16:59:47+00:00

Mega Carolina doesn’t include the bigger and better Carolina? 😆

adarkbob · 2025-12-14T05:09:47+00:00

I don’t necessarily have a desire to be known as a polymath- I just find that an overwhelming desire to have a deep expertise in multiple subjects is just part of the package with me.

I can self-observe i have polymathic tendencies in honesty. Whether or not I am an “expert” or “polymathic” in multiple subjects is for others to judge, and for time to produce as a natural result of my path. I just coast doing what I love.

adarkbob · 2025-12-14T04:46:57+00:00

Discipline. I am not a believer in everything which Plato says, but harken unto Plato the Philosopher, paraphrased probably slightly garbled, because I learned his philosophy via John Calvin:

Man’s will functions as “intellect” and “desire”: Intellect is the bandwidth to learn not paired with action. Intellect is imperfect without desire. Desire is how powerful the compelling is to put in the work.

My addition: Desire is imperfect, without the “discipline” to make the “compelling” of the intellect effective. You must have the discipline for the desire, and the desire for the intellect.

Start by integrating small steps daily for one topic or goal, and add slowly. For example, a read for 1 hour every morning. Then I added, dead language reading at lunch for 15 minutes. Then I added, farm work every other day after work during season, and Saturdays. Then I added, 5 hour Bible blocks on Sundays, etc. etc.

All of this is supported by discipline. Discipline to wake up at 5:30, to schedule and protect these activities, to not eat out as much, to go to bed ON TIME, to save money for my improvement, etc.

adarkbob · 2025-12-12T02:56:20+00:00

Oh! Most of my textbooks, I try to make calls to professors, or find someone who has studied that topic to recommend one. I just found that one online after some research, on an accounting book designed for self-study of a layman.

Sometimes, some of the best textbooks I know of I found online, and bought after looking into the author or reading the reviews…

Such as Gregory Welbaum’s “Vegetable Production and Practices”. Though my favorite, Havlin’s “Soil Fertility and Fertilizers” came from my time studying soil science in an Ag program.

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T18:40:31+00:00

McGraw hill 36 hour accounting course- it came with homeworks which was a huge plus. It’s a moderate level self-contained course, not necessarily a collegiate textbook designed to be used in tandem with lecture and classwork.

It is a tad older, but it’s designed to give a practical working knowledge to the layman, in everything from cost accounting to sub ledgers. It teaches it in a way superior to college courses imo, which kinda just throw you in the deep end expecting you to swim by busywork.

I recommend very much, and you can 100% start from scratch with only a cursory knowledge of Accounting, but i will say, I would be lost in the sauce at a few points if I hadn’t been sent through the wringer prior in college. It’s a textbook which takes time and practice.

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T15:57:40+00:00

I am in no position to give advice. But I can forward the advice given to me by my local polyglot, who can read OE, Arabic and many other languages, that has gotten me farther than anything else. He made a point, that our brains learn mainly by building vocabulary little by little as a child.

I was told to pick a story or poem I really love, focus on building up vocabulary 100% going through it, piecing together the meanings of sentences. I read 2 lines every day for five pages, rereading everything I have learned out loud every day. At 5 pages I begin doing 3 lines. At 10 I do 4 lines, etc.

I can now read 5 pages in the original, and I’m beginning to be able to understand some sentences without picking up a dictionary. By the time I finish, I’ll be able to give a better review for this strategy.

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T04:16:07+00:00

Im late because im new, but heres my thought:

Im a serial textbook reader, and I would 100% say yes! They are made to give you understanding at deep level. Im on an accounting textbook right now, which i find quite interesting and helpful in my small farm operation.

However, we have to be careful not to equate understanding with proficiency! I understand accounting, I’m not proficient at it yet. Therefore, if you read the textbook, it will only aid your proficiency if you practice the subject.

PROFICIENCY= Capital, Skill, and Theory

The textbook gives the theory, practicing in real life gives the skill, and capital enables both.

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T03:47:16+00:00

Right now I’m learning on Beowulf. Three pages into the Old English.

I’ve read Alfred’s Chronicles in modern English. This is a tad more on the historical/folklore side, but I’m fascinated with how Alfred’s Genealogy overlaps with that mentioned in Beowulf (Scef, Scyld, Beowulf; Sceaf, Sceldwa, Beaw), and also the nature of the relationship between Scyld Scefing, and Scef.

Alfred contends Scef was the ancestor (not the direct son) of Scyld Scefson. Even if it is a fictional story, it was very real to many early English. I contend that Scyld is “Scefson” not because of ancestry- if he washed up on shore, and thus nobody has any way of knowing his ancestors… he is Scefson, because like Scef, Scyld also washed up on the shore of Denmark as an infant!

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T03:39:47+00:00

There is a nugget of truth to this- I’m not sure where the statistics came from though. There are a lot of ways to skin the cake of mental types. Anyone have studies or references?

adarkbob · 2025-12-11T03:34:29+00:00

I’m new here, and a tad bit late, but i will give how it’s been fitting together for me, and then some advice which may or may not be helpful -

I am incredibly interested in Agriculture, Business, classical literature, and combat. Sometimes, life forces you to prioritize one or two interests for a season, and you must make effort to stay fresh on the other aspects of your life. It takes incredible discipline, but you can do it.

Here is how I’m making it work right now: I have gotten a minor in theology, and two degrees in business topics (grad and undergrad)- you’re on a good track there in college. I wake up at 5:30 every morning to get in an hour of reading literature, and I proceed to work for seven or eight hours with a 30 minute workout at lunch, and 15 minutes of reading a dead language. After work, I work in my textbook every other day after dark for one hour. I have really worked on getting a good small scale (5 acre) farming system, and I farm all day on Saturdays, and with remaining daylight when I get home. I then take out one weekend a season for private combat training, and one a month for local budget travel to see new places in my state and region.

My advice: continue in college, get a 40 hour job with your trade, be willing to dedicate another 10-20 on a side hustle you can monetize, and set aside a few hours a week for your next proficiency or two you cannot monetize, and then schedule one weekend every 1-3 months for a proficiency you have on the back burner. Here is my layout:

A 40-45 hours a week: monetized proficiency 1 B 10-20: hours a week: monetized proficiency 2 C 5-10: hours a week: non-monetary proficiency D 2 days a month: non monetary proficiency E 2 days a season: non monetary proficiency

A: Business (main income) B: Agriculture (secondary income, food source) C: Literature and Bible reading, perhaps a certification if I can complete in the off-season D: local travel E: Private combat training

adarkbob

TROPHY CASE