Keeping your head above water
The first time you read through the material design specification (available at http://www.google.com/design/spec/material-design/introduction.html), you may be a little overwhelmed. There's a lot of detail in there, and knowing where to start is not easy.
The truth is you don't have to keep all of it in mind. I freaked out the first time I read through it, but I've since come to realize that the point is not to memorize it all. Sure, that would help when making every minute choice about your interface, but it isn't meant to be a toolkit or component library.
Material design is a language—a living document. Google has and will continue to adapt it, and when you learn a language, it helps to know some of the words. However, you cannot learn a whole language in a day, nor can you learn it well only by memorizing set phrases.
No, to learn a language, you need to speak it daily. You need to take to heart the grammar and struggle through your mistakes, until one day...
