<i>> Our dislike of feeling like a noob is our brain telling us "Come on, come on, figure this out."</i><p>Maybe I'm projecting from my own social anxiety, but I believe most of the negative sensation of feeling like a noob is being <i>seen</i> to not know something.<p>People want to come across as valuable to others and one way we do that is by offerring expertise. If we are seen to be noobs, it implies we may be less valuable to others because we don't know a thing.<p>Unfortunately, <i>being</i> a noob is a necessary precondition to actually learning a thing. It's very hard to learn without putting yourself out there in some way and trying. So there is this tension between wanting to be comfortable with looking like an amateur so that you can immerse yourself in the kind of environments where rapid learning happens, while also wanting to come across as an expert at other times.
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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
There is the assumption that people necessarily mind feeling like a noob. I don't really. What I dislike is a situation where I freely admit of being a noob and then people who know clearly even less about the situation than I do acting superior. Or people who know more than me now about it, but will know less than me in a month acting superior. Or, just people acting superior :-)
If you're a constant noob, you're a tourist of knowledge. Actual competence takes time. In many fields, it takes a lifetime. In some fields, it takes more than one lifetime -- you can't achieve greatness if your parents weren't already knowledgeable.<p>Being a noob is neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We are learning machines and curiosity is one of our main drives in life.<p>Appearing as a noob can probably rub some people the wrong way. People who are, how should we put it? Ego sensitive?
My daily yoga practice has taught me to embrace challenging new poses (or situations in life) in a great new way.<p>A paradigm shift, if you will.<p>I used to look at challenging poses with dread. "Oh god, that's going to be uncomfortable..." or perhaps "There is no way I am strong enough to do that..." and I am always right. It is going to be uncomfortable and I am usually too weak to perform the asana with grace.<p>But what really excited me upon learning recently... and what helps me pull through it every single time now is this:<p>I am about to be able to move my body in a way that was never before possible... at least not possible since I was 6 years old or so most likely...<p>If I can just bear through it...<p>In a few weeks time I know I'll be able to move my body in ways that I never even thought was possible... and that's really exciting for a yogi!<p>Trying new things is exhilarating!<p>I feel sorry for my former self who dreaded them for far too long.
I changed careers and at 40 something I'm a noob again.<p>It can be frustrating not knowing and I'll go down the path of analysis paralysis and procrastination sometimes. I'm a bit prone to that as in my previous career I kinda had things down pretty solidly.<p>But I try to embrace it. Is this the right code here? No better way to find out than try things and see what happens....if it doesn't work, well I'm a noob, that is going to happen. (obviously these are somewhat educated / calculated risks, not just random)<p>I like it. There's a freedom in not worrying if you're doing it right all the time and recognizing that doing it wrong is ok provided you learn.
Meh, I think post could have been a tweet. Learning new things will have you feeling like a noob. It's okay to feel like a noob and totally clueless, it's sign that you're learning. Learn often, embrace being a noob often.
> the more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally.<p>> if you stay in your home country, you'll feel less of a noob<p>> And yet you'll know more if you move.<p>I experienced this in the US when I was scheduling interviews for an internship with a US company. I had waited for the interviewer for half an hour and shoot them an email asking for rescheduling after they did not show up.<p>Turns out I forgot the timezone difference. In all my (quarter-century)life, I had never needed to check timezone in the same country. Felt like the biggest noob. I know more in general now but, even for a simple thing like scheduling an interview, I became "locally" noob.
It's a good thing to think of yourself as a noob.<p>I too think of myself as a noob. I believe it has to do about knowledge and experience. You know the old adage "The more you know, the more you know you don't know." To me this is very true.<p>I was reprimanded the other day, by management because I said in a presentation "I don't know" when discussing how to solve a particular problem. When having a discussion there is a few rules that must be followed in order for you to have a meaningful exchange of opinions that brings you closer to some sort of consensus. One of these is principle of charity: "interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation." My manager did the the opposite of this principle and assumed that when I said "I don't know" that that meant that I was going to find out on my own and disregard his opinion and directive. What I meant was that "I don't know, let's gather a group of experts, let them gather information and interpret this in such a way that he can take a proper decision on what to do next."<p>I regret that I wasn't this clear when communicating with him to begin with.<p>To me, in IT nothing is more worse than someone who claim they know everything, have all the answers and don't want to listen.<p>Recently on I recently read the quote "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge." I think this complements the above quote very well, and is something important that we all need to be aware of. To be a noob means at least you have the self-insight to understand that you have much more to learn, and that you are willing to collaborate with your colleagues to achieve more wisdom.
I'm a bit suspicious of people who call me a noob when I'm learning something. Its too often a pejorative as if from on high. As if they were never a beginner. But its a lie. They were once a beginner. And they themselves have probably plateaued. To me its as bad as them bragging about their being a perfectionist. I don't appreciate perfectionism either because they tend to never finish anything.<p>If being a noob is shameful then becoming good and then later an expert is made much more difficult than it should be. Mistakes and failures are also seen as shameful and must be hidden. If you can't be open about making mistakes and learning from them then you're more likely surrounded by idiots or jerks.<p>Failure is part of learning. So if you aren't failing <i>at what you're doing right now</i> in some way, to some degree, then its not challenging enough for you. That is fine because sometimes the job needs to be done right because you're doing the performance. But if you aren't pushing hard into a space where mistakes and failures are actually possible then your goals aren't big enough. Likely stagnating.<p>A stagnating expert is someone who is afraid of the next level. They are afraid of becoming a beginner again. Afraid perhaps to even get into the practice nets and practice batting or throwing. Afraid to practice scales or try some hard piece they've never played.
I think this is roughly equivalent to "you'll learn more outside of your comfort zone [even though you'll feel like you know less]"
This is similar to the idea of Beginner's Mind in Zen. Shunryu Suzuki wrote about it in this book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Informal-Meditation/dp/1590308492" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Informal-Meditatio...</a><p>Which influenced Steve Jobs, among others. It's a great read.
"the more you feel like a noob, the better."
I am not convinced.<p>With experience it should become rarer and rarer to encounter some things that makes so little sense that you feel like a noob, and you certainly shouldn't feel aimless.<p>The more systems you explore, the bigger the toolbox you acquire. And there are not infinitely many existing tools because they once have been invented. And often these tools can be categorized by their operating principles which are even fewer. Because most disciplines overlap, the more you explore the faster the exploration goes.<p>Sure, when you encounter something new you will need to gather some info before you are operational, but when you are enough of a generalist, you will have picked up enough heuristics to know who, where, and what to look for, and it shouldn't take long.<p>Sure, we can dig and make any subject arbitrarily deep so there are infinitely many new things to explore and be amazed by. Staying humble, curious, honest and acknowledging that there are plenty of things that you have explored yet is also necessary.<p>But if you disperse by being contempt of being a noob you risk becoming lost in a senseless experiencing of a chaotic mess, and not gather experience by seeing the order things could be arranged into.<p>So when you feel like a noob, sort it out.
I'm pretty good at keeping up with the SOTA in subjects like crypto, AI. But it's because I make an effort. And they interest me immensely. And it's easy with the wealth of information online.<p>Where I find it harder to keep up is that esoteric knowledge of "the culture". What is current in music and movies and art. Even interacting with young people a lot. The velocity of relevance seems to have altered significantly.<p>Another interesting take is returning to childhood passions. I used to be into sailing and thought if I have some free time I'll take it up as a hobby again. Maybe book a class in Annapolis MD. Or charter a small yacht for a day trip in Florida during spring break.<p>But the world of sailing has just metastasized into a massive industrialized complex! Lexus has a concept luxury yacht. You can control the helm 100% using a Garmin Smart Marine Watch. There exist software platforms for archival wind data.<p>Don't get me wrong, it's awesome. But there is an activation energy. And I am sure there are still single person Hobie Cats available. But it does make you feel as if you need to be all-in or else exist in a perpetual state of n00b-ishness ;)
I like this post. There are Socratic echoes here: "I know that I know nothing", though pg is making a different point. It seems cliche and low effort but often times deep truths ARE cliched. The older I get, the more okay I am with embracing my lack of knowledge in a domain. Now I see it more as a potential first step in future mastery.
> I think the answer is that there are two sources of feeling like a noob: being stupid, and doing something novel.<p>I very much doubt that being stupid correlates with feeling like a noob. In fact, my own experience of 'stupid' people suggests the very opposite.
lol literally the opposite of his twitter feed in which he revels in telling people what to think and do. that's the opposite of noob mentality. pg jumped the shark.
Huh this essay seems really confusing. I can't figure out what pg is actually trying to say - it is short but talks about being a noob in roundabout ways. If this is so popular, perhaps I should get back to blogging again.
I get a joyous, almost dreamlike experience out of being a noob, I love to try things for that feeling of difficulty. There is this rapt appreciation that comes with it, even if I don't personally get good at the thing.<p>Ambling about like a dunce myself, trying to gain some knowledge or skill, and watching professionals do it makes me feel in awe. I am overcome with love for humans reaching for the divine, like Faust pondering future human goodness and joy of participation in human life (as he dies).
I can't say I share the feelings that PG is describing.<p>I don't really mind being a noob at something I see as useful to learn. The feeling that I get in that case is a drive to find out what is up with that thing. In programming it is not always clear, though, that the new thing is that great or even that it should exist in the first place. This makes me then feel not to great. But it is more of a feeling of irritation at the thing that I suspect of not needing to exist.
If someone has completed a process even only once, they may have some insight that an old timer has missed. It's always a good idea to listen to a "noob". You may learn something. Noobs also may have the best ideas about improving a process. They haven't fallen into the "we've always done it that way" mind set as of yet.
I think this speaks to that time-old trade-off between expertise and generality. I can only speak for myself when I say that empirically expertise seems to pay off in job prospects, exercise, and love. Perhaps my risk heuristic function needs adjusting to focus on exploration?
I don't relate to this at all. Yes, I find being a 'noob' unpleasant, but for me it's not about something tugging at me to figure it out, at least not for intrinsic reasons, but because of some sort of inferiority complex. I don't like that the people around me know more than I do.<p>And the idea that "the more of a noob you are locally, the less a noob you are globally" just feels like faulty logic. Any and all combinations of noob-ness are possible, and pretty likely, IMO. And regardless, this sort of statement just seems like advocating for being a jack of all trades, master of none. There's value in that to some people, but going deep on a subject or place also has value that shouldn't be minimized.
Heh. This guy (<i>looks around sheepishly</i>) almost nailed it...<p>For me the feeling of being a n00b is exciting and scary, but one I sort of constantly run towards because it's the one reliable indicator that I am growing. Further, the more knowledge I acquire only emphasizes how little I know sort of making this my steady state in life. I dig it, it's a reason to get up in the morning.<p>The more you know, the less you know. In life as we acquire knowledge we leave the darkness and step into the light, fortunately (IMHO), each time we leave that darkness we find a new world, with each world new shadows we will have to emerge from, ad infinitum.<p>The bounds of which we can know, like our universe is expanding, to not feel like a n00b, is to have stopped learning.
I don't mind PG's stuff. I don't care if he's a bazillionaire. I'm not looking for a dime from anyone, and I don't worship wealth. Lots of billionaires say stuff to which I'd rather give a pass.<p>I don't really mind being a n00b. In fact, I seek it out deliberately. It does get me lots of sneers and micro-aggro; but we never learn anything new, if we don't try something new. I have a pretty thick skin.<p><a href="https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/thats-not-what-ships-are-built-for-595f4ae2c284" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/thats-not-what-ships-are-...</a>
It's the other way round for me. When I was young, I thought old people had nothing figured out. Now, though I'm not that old but I think young people need to figure out much more.<p>Maybe it was because when I was young, I tried to have a go at things in spite of being a noob at many and being told not to 'experiment'.<p>Now, when I see my children with the same train of thoughts, I remember those days and let them have theirs.<p>I agree with PG > "the more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally." And I kind of feel OK being a noob in a new place. Gives me the opportunity to explore without inhibitions.
The final lesson one learns is humility when one is pushing daisies!<p>The difficulty in life is knowing what are the important things to keep from what we have learned.<p>Learning without practicing is futility in such as experience is the mother of certitude!
I've thought a lot about this.<p>Every X years the tech and methods we know and use; get old and eventually useless.<p>This is because we work with and live of something we made up ourselves. Computers, the internet. It just keeps changing. _We_ keep changing it. Law and economics are other examples of studying things we make up ourselves.<p>The opposite, say a botanist or physisist, studies nature and natural laws. How much does flowers, plants and vegetation change? Science and nature doesn't change. Only our insight of nature changes.<p>If you want to become a master, and not reverting to noob over and over - studying nature is a better bet than tech.
I think this is a great post. Value isn't a function of length. For me value of content like this is a function of insight.<p>While the insight from this article may be obvious to many commenting here and be of less value, in the broader world this idea is not obvious.<p>And while I love and respect everyone commenting, including the negative comments, I am wondering if some may have a higher view their insight on this topic than is real.<p>Metrics may help here:<p>- How many languages do you speak?
- How many countries have you spent at least 3 days in?
- How many books do you read per year?<p>The higher these numbers to more you likely can appreciate this post.<p>Your humble fellow HN reader,<p>--Harris
Is there an inverse correlation between curiosity and the aversion of feeling like a noob? Exploring unknown areas/subjects/places may be a bigger driver than overcoming the ‘noob feeling aversion’
> why do we dislike it?<p>I don't dislike it at all. I love feeling like a noob. The last summer I purchased a 3D printer (one of those you have to assemble yourself) and, not knowing anything about it, I started to learn, to make tests. I felt like a child again.<p>You are noob, then you master a skill, then you think you are getting good at it. You browse some forum and notice that you really don't know much. Somehow you started to use this skill at work, and it's not so much fun anymore.<p>It's time for searching another thing to be a noob again...
> The life of hunter-gatherers was complex, but it didn't change as much as life does now. They didn't suddenly have to figure out what to do about cryptocurrency.<p>This line gave me a good laugh.
> The life of hunter-gatherers was complex, but it didn't change as much as life does now.<p>I agree with this sentiment but draw a different conclusion. Stepping outside of your comfort zone as a hunter gatherer was a lot more dangerous -- new terrains, new plants that could be poisonous, new animals that could kill you. Tipping wrong or sticking your chopsticks in your rice bowl is unlikely to lead to death or dismemberment, but it's possible our nervous system is trained to send signals that it might.
> It's not pleasant to feel like a noob.<p>Some people live to feel like a noob. It's a rush. They seek the feeling out. When they stop feeling like a noob, the rush goes away and they look for something else they can be a noob at.<p>These people have trouble finishing projects. Given enough energy and creative thought, they can be quite successful. But the the key is self-awareness.<p>Noobophiles who deny their tendency can strangle a project or company. They can find it hard to let go when success itself is the novelty.
Going from <i>you don't know what you don't know</i> to <i>you know that you don't know</i> is still an improvement, and it gives you a path to learning.
I like the feeling of being a noob. It means I have something new to learn and discover.<p>Asking questions, whether it's to Google or another person is a very rewarding process when you eventually find an answer.<p>I would have thought most people in the tech industry would think like this since it requires so much ongoing learning and feeling like a noob every time a new library / framework comes out. Maybe not?
Work and hobby-wise, being noob is pretty much my life so far. On the rare occasions where I first think I know everything I do begin to worry as things I tend to work with rarely are that simple, really.<p>Same with people at work. It's often better to be the dullest pencil in the box because if you end up being the sharpest one yourself you know there's likely nobody left to challenge you.
Just a thought.<p>I remember listening to a joe rogan podcast where he mentioned the term "personal sovereignty". I took it to be the state people reach when they're the sort of captain of their own boat.<p>And being a noob is sort of the opposite of this... you're sort of at the mercy of things.<p>I think you have to be a noob to get to personal sovereignty, and you have to ping pong back and forth to maintain it.
There's a great book by Truesdell, named "An Idiot's Fugitive Essays on Science". According to Truesdell, the initial meaning of the word "idiot" was one who does not have preconceived ideas.<p><a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461381877" rel="nofollow">https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781461381877</a>
Maybe the discomfort of feeling like a noob helps temper the gratification of novelty and curiosity.<p>Sometimes it feels like a balancing act, I want to learn everything, but at the same time the valley of noobness forces me to pick the things that seem particularly interesting. Novelty causes exploration, while the discomfort of learning produces exploitation of only <i>some</i> things.
I think this misses that the word "noob" (or at least its negative connotation) is mostly used in comparison to <i>other</i> people, and doesn't apply at the boundary of human knowledge. Newton wasn't a "noob" because he didn't know about relativity. He probably didn't feel like a "noob". He was just very curious.
It’s refreshing to hear this from an authority figure. My personal website <a href="https://yingw787.com" rel="nofollow">https://yingw787.com</a> has the Socratic creed “the only thing I know is that I know nothing”. I try to live up to that ideal and not let my pride and ego get in the way. A constant fight, but one worth having.
This has to be something that people have studied.<p>Novelty and new challenges are good for your brain. I'm positive that has been researched.<p>As to why learning new things makes you a bit grumpy, I'd bet that has been studied too. Probably it's just that feeling of knowing you're not good at it - and maybe envy of those who are.
I don't find this feeling uncomfortable. I have been driven by an unending curiosity about things that I don't yet know anything about. My career has had many turns into unknown territory.<p>I wonder if a compulsion to be an authority makes the noob feeling uncomfortable.
While I agree that taking risks and trying new things is important, there's this saying that rolling stones don't gather moss.<p>If you keep moving from one thing to the next, you might become a jack of all trades but a master of none. And real accomplishment takes mastery.
> It's not pleasant to feel like a noob.<p>This needs to be qualified. If I'm a noob at something and I find the right person to help me understand said something, it can be an amazingly rewarding experience and not at all unpleasant.
This essay feels a little trite.<p>There's a place for expertise and a place to be a noob. You have to keep learning.<p>But I find this constant degradation of work and effort, something I see a lot in Silicon Valley, pretty tiresome. I feel like the culture is pushing us to be dilettantes in everything, to be more clever, and to "work smarter", rather than putting in the hours -- striving for Olympic-level athletic performance, pushing the state of the art forward in hard science, or bootstrapping an industry cluster from scratch -- any of these could be 10-20 year undertakings.<p>This is pg, in 2012: "If you're not at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, you can get to one. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year." <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html</a><p>So yes, I don't think we should be provincial, but there is value in doing the same thing every day, and getting really, really good at it. Some things aren't so easily "disrupted". If you don't put in the time, you can waste your entire life chasing the new and shiny in 2-year increments, and accomplish absolutely nothing of value.
The reasoning of the author is totally flawed. If you feel like a noob locally, there is no guarantee that you will not feel like a noob globally too. In other words, it's not always good to feel like a noob.
Great post. One thing that jumped out at me was the challenge that concurrency poses to PG and other VCs. When plenty of cash, speculation on platform adoption, and speculation on new financial markets all collide. Which tech is the right horse to ride, if any? Are coins part of terms sheets now? Are DAOs something we should fund?<p>Being far removed from SV and VC means I don't know what the actual questions are surfacing right now, but I do know that it is a perfect example of a situation where a "Beginner's Mind" can serve one well.
>Farawavia<p>I think Paul just coined a new fictional destination.<p>(His blog is the only mention of that word indexed in Google atm.)<p>I'm going to use that.<p>Thanks, Paul!
I don't know enough about the topic to have a real opinion on it but I dislike tying everything to how we "evolved". Not everything is based on evolution unless you say that our culture and society is based on evolution so it's true by association. It smacks of Deepak Chopra's tying his nonsense to words used in physics and saying it's all science.
This sounds like a corollary to the Dunning Kruger Effect!
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect</a>
Man, the hate is thick on the HN comment ground today.<p>Lots of august people are very afraid of looking or feeling stupid. Ask anyone in a product development meeting to take a firm stance on the technical feasibility of a product feature and you'll get a lot of hemming and hawing about it whether the details are feasible, and very few people willing to put their neck out and say "Yes, we can do it." Because if you're wrong, you've spent some of your political capital in a way that fixes in everyone's mind: "Well, the last time we listened to cushychicken, we fucked up!"<p>The angle that I think pg is missing is: when can you safely be a noob, without torpedoing your credibility?<p>That's a much more difficult and interesting question.
Sigh. Do such low-effort posts from other people as these recent pg ones ever appear on the HN front page?! Guess I just won't click on them in future. It's depressing to see –because I <i>really</i> love many of his essays on non-startup subjects, and learned a lot from them, and probably will again next time I read them.<p>edit: oh, now its #1.
There's a word for this: provincial.<p>Trying to understand certain phenomena in these times (like the election and continuing support of certain presidents) can be utterly mystifying to academics, intellectuals and other mental explorers.<p>But it helps to realize that half the country lives outside of major cities and their biggest concerns are mostly things like whether gas prices will go up, and real estate taxes, and if they'll have a job next year. The environment or corporate malfeasance or discrimination are so far below their radar that they can be considered second-order effects. They know their way of life and they want it to stay that way forever and they're certain that they sure don't want some far off know-it-all to tell them what to do.