>>244801. Don't hang out on leftypol or watch Marxist youtubers like Hakim etc.
2. Ignore/avoid orthodox Marxists, Marxist-Leninists etc. and anyone adjacent to them. Marx's own work was distorted heavily by both his critics and his followers.
3. Start with Marcello Musto's Another Marx, which gives you a good overview of Marx's life, works, and how Marxists have distorted them.
4. For primary texts, begin with the 1844 manuscripts, Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy and Wage Labor and Capital. If you do read Capital, make sure its the new translation of Vol. 1 by Paul Reitter. Don't touch anything else. I would recommend digging into Capital. Avoid popular commentaries, like those of David Harvey and other orthodox Marxists. Many people struggle with it because they are illiterate and brain dead MLs, but the real difficulty is getting to grips with economic concepts. If you do brave the waters and really work through it, you'll find the experience intellectually very rewarding