Ahem ahem, so I stumbled one of your older posts and took a look at your acc
How do you recommend one gets that educated?
I received this request on October 15th. Obediently hammered my answer into the keyboard the next day, but kept overthinking whether it might come across as offensive. As a result, it stayed in my drafts for quite a while. Sorry! My apologies. Below is the original response.
Just to clarify, when you say āgets that educated,ā are you asking in general or referring to something specific on my blog? Iām not entirely sure what specifically caught your attention, but I really appreciate the compliment (or so I apologise if any criticism has flown over my self-indulgent head.) Iāll do my best to answer.
Terms like educated are always a matter of perspective, and to me, I donāt consider myself nor my blog to be educated. Iām 17, which means I still have a lot of formal education (degrees, certifications, academic study) ahead of me. My brain isnāt fully developed yet, I hardly have any practical wisdom (experience, expertise, etc.), and I also havenāt had the time to gather media experience (e.g reading fewer books/movies compared to someone in their 40s, for instance, leading to me having much less quantitative/qualitative thoughts than they could have due to less comparison material). By objective measures, I might not be educated.
I do think that there might be a few factors in the way the process and presentation of things on this blog are handled that may give this appearance, though.
The writing process for longer pieces on my blog has one clear advantage: time. My recent book reviews, written over days or weeks, give me plenty of room to second-guess, rethink, and develop my opinions. Itās like the infamous best comeback after a fight, except here I can already bring them forward. In a spontaneous conversation, Iād 100% fail without that.
Usually, we underestimate ourselves. When I finish a book, I often have nothingāno single thought in my head. But once you start outlining, ideas suddenly appear. So, thinking someone seems more of anything might just stem from underestimating ourselves. e.g. For me, I absolutely have no clue how 90% of the reviews or essays out there could come up with their contents
I sometimes lean into a dry, cynical humour, which tends to come across as slightly masculine, superior or in this case 'educated'. ( But then I also make use of the Tumblr-dialect which suggests the opposite. So be it.)
But humans tend to love validation, so letās be self-indulgent. :D
Aside from the reasons I believe may ''''''wrongly'''''' give the appearance of being educated, how does one actually become educated?
Your main priority is to learn broadly over deeply. A lot of "educated" people donāt have deep expertise in everything; They just know a little about many fields. Enough to make connections. Quite frankly, that's the best way to make use of knowledge.
Read actively. The common advice is to āread a lot,ā but donāt follow trends or read mindlessly. Thereās a common perception among BookTok that nonfiction āequals intelligence'. But while I personally enjoy classical literature and scientific papers for fun, they barely give me large-scale, noticeable applications to use. Donāt feel like you have to read one specific genre from this advice. Most practical knowledge comes from engaging critically Whatever tf that even means with what you read, regardless of the genre.
/\ The positive of self-help (+ dark academia) books is that due to social media validation, they make you āfeelā educated though. Helps with confidence.
The source of the most knowledge I also apply the most (discussion with peers, engaging with new information, etc.), literally stems from ā¦ and Iām so so sorry ā¦ everything Iām taught in the classroom. Schools try to teach you competencies, and the most significant learning/applying education Iāve done started in the years when I began studying for assessments/tests for the first time in my life.
