Panning for Gold

Panning for gold requires patience, and an understanding of the properties of gold relative to other minerals. Gold panners don't just work with any pile of sand and pebbles. No, they learn how to distinguish promising from hopeless sediments. And once they've done that, they have a method for sorting through all the junk to get to the gold. They swirl it around and around and the junk spills out of their pans - leaving behind any gold.

If you're panning for knowledge, its the same game.

There's lots of junk knowledge out there. Way more than there is real knowledge.

To get to it, you need to learn how to sort the promising from the hopeless (which will save you lots and lots of time!). And once you've decided what information you'll work with, you need a method to get through the heap of sand and muck to find the goods.

How to know what to work with? And how to sort it?

For suggestions on this, see Who To Trust and Exploring the Real World.