Study something deeply under the direction of an expert critic. Repeat at least once. This is difficult to find -- even most colleges/unis don't provide it. Mas

Study something deeply under the direction of an expert critic. Repeat at least once. This is difficult to find -- even most colleges/unis don't provide it. Mastery takes years. Best to do this in your youth. Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. Without criticism, at least a couple times to mastery, it's extraordinarily difficult to differentiate confusion from clarity. (Programming is a wonderful field because reality is such a harsh critic and experiments are free... your code either works or it doesn't, and the most expensive input to the compiler is measured in human heart beats. But the field is exceptionally rare in that respect.) But also, as a general heuristic, it's safe to avoid 4 minute reads that promise to tell you something as grand as "How To Think".