My assumption of what the Op meant here;
My desire as a newbie is to know more and navigate to a greater altitude faster than expected.
is he's referring to this forum and a piece of advice to the Op; there's no shortcut to "navigating faster than expected" just do your thing. Abide by the rules, give yourself to research and before you know it, you'd have acclimated to this place.
Yeah, you’re absolutely right, from what I know, the primary purpose of this forum and community is to learn and like we know, learning is a gradual and steady process that takes time and actually never ends too, so there are really no shortcuts to mastering all the available tools as well as gaining all the available knowledge here on the forum, my advice to the op is to take his time and gradually learn how to navigate the forum, that way he’ll be able to learn even faster than expected, and he’ll be shocked to know just how much progress he’ll make with time.