Conversation

I have this colleague who describes a need to study for a few hours each day. I couldn't think that I'd heard an adult use the term "study" before in US English, so I suppose it stuck in my ear. It's a great word, I'm into it...
4
99
Study isn't "I am a Job or Activity." It's not a hobby word either. It's a, "Hey, I devote attention to learning about something." You can do that forever, there is no beginning or end or done. It's an active contemplative doing.
3
70
Replying to
Heh I’ve been explicitly labeling a bunch of my time study too lately. Weird how hard it is to study as an adult. It’s perceived as frivolity on par with play. It becomes indistinguishable from its childhood opposite.
3
22
Replying to and
“This is serious, we don’t have time to study, we have work to do.” Where used it’s in a different adult professional analysis sense of “study this proposal” not general topic mastery
2
9
Replying to
That child/adult flip on the term is so stark. I started thinking about how as a kid, I'd describe a lot of my unstructured play as studying. So maybe that need to spend some time figuring out is just a long arc.
2
7
Replying to
I didn’t study much, but when I did get into a subject I’d study it far beyond the needs of school syllabus, if it was on syllabus at all. So I had a weird rep as the kid who breezed through school work unlike the conscientious but not bright ones who were considered “studious”
1
3
Replying to
Interested in almost everything including fortunately almost all school subjects. Outside of syllabus, astronomy, airplanes, world history got to study level. To some extent if I found a good self-study book on any subject I’d study it. Study books are rare, unlike textbooks.
2
6
Replying to
Actual study takes dedicated time though. I’d say ~2-3h a week for an information based subject like history, and ~10-15h for a practice based one like math. Study is a level up from mere interest. I was interested in everything but didn’t study everything.
Replying to
Mayny people do study something already, they just don't quite know they're doing it. Like gym people/diet people. I don't know what they are doing over there but it's something that looks studying-ish to me.
1
3
Replying to
Yeah, but I’m inclined to reserve the label for subjects larger than yourself. Something that plugs into a tradition of study that evolves in history in an accumulation process. Exercise and diet rarely rise to that level. I guess a sense of history feels necessary to me.
1
5
Show replies