All knowledge is a summary of methods, not a creation.

Textbooks are always years behind practice. Something gets done first, and only then is it summarized into knowledge.

If you really want to learn how to wage war, what's the best approach? Have a general take you along and show you firsthand—fight it out again and again until you've got it. The upside is that learning becomes genuinely easy; the downside is that the cost is prohibitively high.

Not willing to spend that much on teaching? Then the alternative is to dump a pile of military strategy books on you and tell you to digest them. You study, you take an exam—an exam that serves as a filter, selecting the best from the best. Only the truly outstanding earn a shot at real combat, and whether you can seize that opportunity depends entirely on your own ability.

At this stage, you realize that all the preparation you did across various knowledge domains was really just one thing: exchanging it for a single credential—the qualification to get a hands-on opportunity.