You Bought a Good Tool—Should the Maker Throw In a Secret Manual of Mastery?

Some people harbor a naive expectation: that the moment they buy a good tool, the maker ought to include a complete, detailed operating manual—and, ideally, throw in a “secret manual” (a wuxia-style kung fu manual) on how to wield that tool with consummate mastery.

Actually, just a few everyday examples are enough to demolish this myth on its own:

1. Buy a plane costing hundreds of millions of NT dollars—will the maker include a secret manual on “how to become a qualified pilot”?
2. Buy a supercar costing tens of millions—will the maker include a secret manual on “how to become a racing driver”?
3. Buy a car costing a million—will the maker throw in an entire free driving-school course?
4. Buy an electric drill costing tens of thousands—will the manufacturer include a technical manual on “how to drill holes straight and clean”?

If none of these come with such a thing, then why would anyone fantasize that buying a piece of software costing a few thousand should come bundled with a secret manual that turns you into a master? The reality is that having a basic tutorial to tell you how to open the software and roughly what those buttons do is already pretty good going.

To truly learn a tool well, the first step is to shatter this myth. People willing to share knowledge certainly deserve our thanks, but you have to understand one thing: the fact that content has been shared does not mean the sharer obtained that knowledge for free in the first place. Much of it was accumulated through time, money, and even plenty of wrong turns. If you can’t even appreciate this, and spend your days living in the fantasy that “knowledge should be shared for free,” then in the end what you manage to learn will probably be only the free stuff.

By the same token, someone who does nothing but play the “handout-taker” in the community usually won’t gain more for it. In most cases, what you reach out and catch is the dross that others didn’t want and casually tossed aside—which you then treat as treasure.

No matter how good a tool is, it’s still just a tool. What really decides how far you can go is whether you’re willing to invest the time to master it, and the attitude with which you regard the knowledge others share.