Mental Models but Why?

From the past 2-3 days, I've started to question my reliance over mental models I read on the internet. One part belief is that they're essential for noble pursuits as they provide a sense of direction and validation about where you're going with your choices and you get to think about "am I making the right decision?". Mental models provide you with the validation you need at those moments but now, the question is my mind is that do we really need these many directions and instructions to follow?

I believe 'figuring out' is a great approach to learning and pursuing a goal but that is against the idea of what mental models provide. It's not the way with easy hacks but instead, burning your own hands and then learning from it.

A clear distinction between mental models based learning and learning using the 'figuring out' approach is that when you learn from mental models, you get the knowledge whereas when you try to figure things out yourself, you're exposed to more situations and you get not only knowledge but you get to feel the emotions associated with it. I think it's pretty evident that taking into account our emotions we feel when discussing such ideas is important as that makes sure we're getting realistic with our ideas instead of just throwing away elegant words that are good in theory but realistically, we never get to experience those ideas. To simplify it, it's the approach of knowledge vs. knowledge w/ experience and feelings.Keep in mind the idea of Daniel Goleman that emotions conquer over rationale in a lot of cases. Now think about the big picture.

- Ritik Sahni