On Understanding

It's tempting, when trying to understand something, to go in with a particular mind-frame already in place, a set of critical tools ready to incise and inspect immediately, upon first encounter, but, I think, this isn't helpful in understanding.

What you have to do is lay aside, at first, the critical tools of the mind and simply take in the information. That's the first step. Take in the information to understand it. Know what it is saying (or try to). Once you have known what it is saying, then you can pick up your tools and begin the critical work.

My error in the past has been trying to be precocious in my understanding of something, but that was wrong. You understand merely first; you understand critically second.

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