There is a specific loneliness to being a self-learner - nobody saw the failures, the confusion, the false starts - so when you finally get good, the achievement exists only inside you - Silicon Canals

"The hardest part wasn't the coordination or reading music. It was practicing scales in the evening, knowing my neighbors probably thought I'd been playing the same piece badly for six months when actually I'd progressed through three different pieces, each one slightly less terrible than the last."

"Your breakthrough moments happen at strange hours, often after everyone else has gone to bed. Your 'aha' moments echo in empty rooms."

Self-learning involves a profound sense of solitude, where personal breakthroughs occur without external validation. The journey can feel isolating, as there are no classmates or instructors to share progress with. Practicing skills, like playing an instrument, often leads to invisible struggles that others may not recognize. Unlike traditional learning environments, where achievements are visible and acknowledged, self-teaching results in moments of realization that happen in isolation, highlighting the importance of external validation in the learning process.

Read at Silicon Canals