Learning to Learn

I would say "fun" is overrated. We have become so focused on everything being fun that everything including fun itself has become tepid and mediocre. It is important to slog through the hard parts to cross the barrier of expert beginner. We are over downplaying the value of hard work and grit.

In many ways I agree with your opening sentence---maybe I shouldn't have written "fun". I think I was trying to get at something more like that the experience of learning itself is itself a good thing (even if it's not fun, even if it's suffering, even if it's hard) and I think mechanical and stoic recipes to optimize the process fail to adequately appreciate that fact.

The best part of learning piano isn't getting good at piano---it's learning piano. And sure there are some things we have to learn that we aren't that interested in learning, but I think even those things have the capacity to be worthwhile experiences if properly framed.

I think applying the word "efficient" to this area is suggestive of urgency and greater purpose---I don't buy into either.

I think 'fun' is a prerequisite for optimal learning, you can definitely have both.

And I think greater purpose is definitely a thing if you subscribe to a utilitarian moral framework

This is exactly why drills exist: to make reasoning mechanic. The same as in the military... You can only decide (know) if you have the basics memorized to the core, and this requires... boredom in most of us.

I graduated in mathematics. Proving that Projective Space is a noetherian scheme is not exactly a thrilling challenge. But you have to go through the motions if you want to be able to "think" about algebraic varieties.

Same in any other field of "knowledge".

> We are over downplaying the value of hard work and grit.

Who is doing that?

There is a big difference between learning something to become a skilled professional versus just a hobby. A lot of things I learned are for myself. I want them to be fun. There is no end goal. I don't want to compete with anyone, I don't want to prove anyone I am very good at this. I am learning new skills for fun and I intend to get enjoyment from practicing them. Throwing at a hobbyist "now repeat this 1000 times to get it perfect" is how you kill motivation.

I think 'joy' would be a fitting term, perhaps? Here (https://www.1517.org/articles/cs-lewis-on-joy) C.S.Lewis defines it well, and distinguishes it from 'pleasure' and 'happiness'.