Learning and growth
Xu Guangqi
Start from the bottom
Xu Guangqi (Ming · 1562–1633) — Start from the bottom.
What actually happened?
In 1608 floods across the lower Yangtze wiped out the wheat and rice. Xu was at home in Shanghai, mourning his father and looking for a crop that could tide people over. He heard that sweet potatoes did well in Fujian, and a visitor from Putian brought him planting stock three times. They grew as well as they did in the south, so he wrote a short treatise on how to plant them, for others to copy.
The final exam at forty-two
He came first in the provincial examination at thirty-five and passed the final one only at forty-two. Two years later he began translating the Elements with Ricci, starting a whole new subject at an age when most men stop.
Someone who moves into programming at forty need not feel they started late.
What he learned went into the ground
He took European surveying and hydraulics straight into flood control and farming. The sweet potato went into a book only after he had grown it. His test for anything new was whether he could make it work with his own hands.
Learn a new tool, then use it to finish one real piece of work on your own desk.
Learn one thing, write one thing
The Elements, a book on surveying, a book on Western water methods, the treatise on agriculture: almost everything he learned he turned into writing. Once it was written down, he was no longer the only one who knew it.
Learn a new method, write one page about it for a colleague, and find out whether you understand it.
How do I use it today?
This week pick one new thing you feel you cannot keep up with. Find the most basic course or book underneath it, and get the definitions in its first chapter clear before you look at any of the applications.
Deep read
Read alongside
Further
Lines to keep
Exams passed at forty-two, geometry begun at forty-four.
Learn something new, then make it work with your own hands.
Write down what you learned, and you are not the only one who knows it.