There’s something oddly liberating about being clueless.
We’re conditioned to chase mastery — collect degrees, stack skills, and stay on top of our game. But there’s a quieter joy in starting from scratch, in not knowing, in fumbling your way forward. Being a beginner, voluntarily or otherwise, puts you back in touch with something raw and alive.
I’ve come to see beginnerhood not as a weakness, but as a kind of quiet strength. When you’re a beginner, the world regains its texture. Every small success — tying a clean yoga bind, painting your first awkward watercolour flower, configuring a basic Python script — feels like a personal revolution. There’s no expectation to be perfect. Just the permission to be curious.
A Personal Note from the Beginning Line
A few months ago, I opened Blender for the first time. The interface stared back like a cryptic puzzle. I’ve worked with complex models and AI frameworks — but this was something else. Alien.
Nothing I clicked made sense. I undid every step. I almost gave up.
But something made me stay. Maybe it was the freedom of not knowing what to expect. Maybe it was curiosity unshackled from performance.
Frame by frame, I figured things out. I made ugly objects. The render crashed. But that moment, that disorientation — it felt strangely nourishing.
I wasn’t producing. I was learning.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
— Shunryu Suzuki
Why Beginnerhood Matters (Especially Now)
We live in a world obsessed with speed and perfection. But being a beginner is an invitation to slow down. To notice details. To get intimate with the process, not just the outcome.
When we start something new — a language, a skill, a city — we return to asking better questions. We listen harder. We drop the mask of certainty. And slowly, quietly, we stretch into who we’re becoming.
What I’ve discovered is this: being a beginner doesn’t make you smaller — it stretches you. It reminds you that learning is not a ladder to be climbed but a field to be wandered, barefoot and wide-eyed.
In a way, that’s more powerful than being the expert in the room.
Lessons from the Blank Page
Here are a few truths I’ve come to love about being a beginner:
- You stop performing and start absorbing.
You don’t have to prove anything — which is exactly when real learning begins. - You build resilience gently.
Every mistake becomes data, not defeat. - You remember what empathy feels like.
You’re kinder to yourself — and by extension, to others finding their footing too. - Time feels different.
There’s presence. Attention. A kind of flow in the fumbling.
From PhD Walls to Swim Lanes
This isn’t just about creative tools.
During my PhD, there were long phases of uncertainty, where nothing made sense, where I questioned everything. But looking back, that discomfort was doing the slow work of reshaping me. Teaching me to stay. To ask again. To try, even when I didn’t know how it would unfold.
Later, I took swimming lessons as an adult. Humbling? Absolutely. But in the embarrassment, there was a strange joy. I wasn’t competing. I was just showing up. Breath by breath, stroke by stroke.
“You have a right to your actions, but never to your actions’ fruits.”
— Bhagavad Gita
This line hits differently when you’re learning something from the ground up.
An Invitation
In a world obsessed with speed, scale, and showing off — to begin again is an act of quiet rebellion.
Where in your life can you start over?
What’s something you’ve shelved because you didn’t want to be seen starting small?
Dust it off. Begin again.
There’s beauty in the slowness. Grace in the mess. And, quietly, your future self is cheering you on.
So here’s to the fresh notebooks. The trembling first strokes. The teachers we find in strangers, children, and YouTube tutorials. Here’s to stumbling and laughing and asking the obvious questions.
Because sometimes the most soulful progress begins when we stop trying to prove, and start choosing to play.
✨ If this resonates, I’d love to hear from you. Drop a note or comment — what are you learning or relearning right now? Let’s celebrate the courage it takes to begin.
mangosoul 