The Click
There’s a moment in learning when everything just comes together — a fragmented mess of ideas suddenly snaps into place, and the world feels different. As a student at the University of Illinois, where I majored in Statistics and Computer Science, I lived for those moments. Memorization and repetition helped me keep my head above water, but they never gave me that spark of understanding. The concepts that truly stayed with me, the ones that shaped how I think, came from those rare flashes of insight.
I'll call such a moment The Click — instances when a mental model of the world is discovered, altered, or completely shattered. It's a moment of understanding that I believe is unique only to things capable of having a conscious experience. The way babies learn to walk or talk isn’t much different from the way we learn to draw, lift weights, or solve hard problems. Each of these requires perceptibly instantaneous, repeated realizations that lay the groundwork for our psychological and physiological responses to future experiences.
The Click thrives in environments that foster curiosity and deep engagement, but not every learning environment makes it easy to thrive. In my time at UIUC, I experienced both extremes. In courses where success depended heavily on exam performance, I often defaulted to cramming and memorization. While this approach worked for short-term results, it rarely allowed me to internalize material in a way that transformed my understanding. In contrast, when I encountered subjects that truly captured my imagination — topics I approached with genuine interest and an open mind — I noticed how much easier it was to experience the Click. These insights didn’t come from brute force but from immersing myself in the material, exploring patterns, and letting connections form naturally. The difference was clear: environments that promote understanding versus those that demand performance. This isn't to say that high-performing environments can't foster understanding, rather, performance should be an application of high understanding, not the motivating force behind it.
Mastery over a skill, tool, or framework is not linear, nor does it require jumping suddenly from confusion to clarity. You have to twitch before you crawl, crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Complicated ideas can only make sense to a mind ready to receive them. Otherwise, we fall victim to frustration and confusion, grappling with concepts that seem out of reach simply because our mental models aren’t prepared. Achieving a new baseline, and a higher level of understanding, is where the Click lives. A person learning to drive finally parallel parks after many failed attempts. A kid in cleats juggles a soccer ball ten times in a row. The proper environment to nurture the Click makes repetition and obsession feel natural and allows growth to come effortlessly.
But the destruction of these ideal learning environments happens slowly, then all at once. Shrinking attention spans make it harder for children to repeat behaviors consistently enough for lasting learning. Other students are relying on technology and language models to solve their problem sets or churn out several drafts of an essay without critically engaging with the problem. Researchers and college students memorize formula after formula without understanding their origins or proofs, like wielding a sword to cut grass — an act that diminishes both the tool’s purpose and the wielder’s potential.
One of the most significant learning experiences I’ve had was as a freshman on my high school robotics team. I was surrounded by people I thought were geniuses, but more importantly, they were nerds like me. They were patient, kind, and helped me build my foundational knowledge of computer science. The first time I wrote a program to read controller input and make our robot move around the field, it felt impossible. I thought I needed an innate understanding of Java, the Android SDK, and the game’s objectives — all at once. It was overwhelming, layers upon layers of information that felt impossible to untangle.
But over time, bit by bit, it started to make sense. I learned Java syntax alongside broader programming concepts. I shadowed upperclassmen, absorbing their conversations as a fly on the wall. When it was finally my turn to contribute to our software stack, I wrote a lot of broken code before I could write working code. And after that, I wrote a lot of bad code before figuring out how to write good code. Each new realization brought a dopamine rush, a new eidetic reference, and greater confidence in myself. It didn't take me very long to realize that this is how I always want learning to feel.
There’s a comforting idea that no one truly knows what they’re doing — that we’re all just figuring things out as we go. While confusion is a natural and important part of the learning process, I don’t think we’re meant to feel that way all the time. Over time, as we embrace the process and persist through challenges, we can develop confidence in our understanding of the world. The goal isn’t to always “make it up as we go,” but to reach a place where we feel grounded in our knowledge and capable of navigating complexity with clarity. This resilience allows us to approach failure as a tool for learning, strengthening our belief in our ability to grow.
Failure is a primary motivator of the Click, shaping understanding in ways success never can. Each failed attempt, frustrating as it may feel, signals that our current mental model is incomplete, nudging us closer to a breakthrough. Failure isn’t a sign of inadequacy — it’s a prerequisite for mastery. Each stumble forces us to test and refine our assumptions. Just as muscles grow stronger through strain and microtears, our minds sharpen by pushing against the boundaries of what we know. The Click lives in the space between failure and success, emerging only when we’ve stumbled enough times to finally stand steady. Recognizing failure not as an endpoint but as part of the process lets us embrace it fully, turning frustration into curiosity and setbacks into stepping stones.
Failed relationships teach us what we’re really looking for in an equal partnership. Failed businesses teach us about resilience, adaptability, and the true value of vision and execution. More than that, failures clarify our priorities; what we’re willing to fight for, pivot from, or let go of.
The act of embracing the Click is the process by which we truly learn and grow, and it happens when we give ourselves the space to dive deep and let curiosity take the lead. Too often, we’re stuck in environments that make us rush, focus on surface-level goals, or fear failure, and that’s where we miss out. Whether it’s in school, at work, or just in life, we need to slow down and make room for those moments of real understanding. Let yourself explore, mess up, and try again. It’s in those moments that the real breakthroughs happen.