Stay Naked Sunday: Random Thoughts on Shovels and German Cars
When I think back to what I actually went to school for, and then take a look at my life and what I’m doing with my expensive education today, I wonder if I wouldn’t have been better off going to cosmetology school instead. At least ‘a’ would follow ‘b’ – I’d have learned how to cut hair and I’d be making a living working in a beauty salon. Life would be a lot less complicated – but those things, or life, rarely work out that way – and I think most of us who have earned some sort of advanced degree had no idea what we wanted to do with our lives once we actually started living them.
Unless you really know something like, “I want to be a doctor” ; you go to college, study something that interests you, graduate, and then try your best to get some kind of job that’s going to pay you enough to buy that nice house in the suburbs with the fine German automobile parked in the driveway. I mean, how many art-history grads does the world really need anyway?
But our capacity to learn and grow is limitless, and most of us manage to get some kind of job, then learn how to actually do it over time as we go along, and we get that fine German automobile. Human beings were given the unique ability to think and reason; two critical elements of learning, and because we can learn, many of us can teach ourselves the things we need to know in order to do our jobs, as well as lead fuller lives.
Tho teaching people, especially adults, isn’t easy – trust me. Professional people, usually men I might add, are the worst. They’ve already proved to themselves that they can navigate the corporate ladder and achieve some measure of success for themselves, and that they can get that fine German automobile. So, there are times when I’ve decided to just hand someone like that the shovel and let them dig their own grave with a problem because they needed to learn how to fail, because that was the best way to help them learn how to succeed.
The Thomas Edison quote applies:
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Failure isn’t always a bad thing, because if we’re smart, we learn from our mistakes and discover new ways to solve our problems. Mistakes in life are often the best things that can ever happen to us.
This failure phenomenon can often be seen at work within the internet forums supporting open-source software projects, where a hodgepodge of personalities and information makes its way around in hundreds of different directions, all for the one individual to try and sift thru and decipher. And on occasion, I’ve participated in a few of them to try and help people with their software issues.
As someone who teaches people professionally, I know that sometimes handing someone the shovel is the best way for them to learn. Tho there’s a tendency sometimes, especially in the open source software community, to tell n00bs to RTFM (Read The Fucking Manual), suggesting that the answers to their questions can be found if they simply just looked elsewhere instead of asking questions – but we’re not wired that way, and there are a host of psychological traits which explain this, but suffice it to say, RTFM or ‘Just Google it’ is the worst thing we can ever say to someone, and the question becomes, are those forums places of learning or places of teaching? Two very different things.
But, I already have that fine German automobile and I use my shovel in the garden, so what do I know anyway?
Enjoy your Stay Naked Sunday
Sides, I’d rather have the ne camero or challenger if they ever come out!
That’s why I enjoy teaching people about sexuality. There are no manuals for that, really We can’t tell n00bs to RTFM. I can’t begin to tell you how fulfilling it is for me to see someone’s eyes light up (literally, or vicariously through the words they write to me) when I explain to them about how to do something, or provide them with a perspective they may not have considered before. I do get tired of answering the same questions over and over, but given the ridiculous way our society treats the subject, I understand that answering those same questions means one more person becomes enlightened.
I doubt I’ll ever make enough doing that to afford a German autmobile. But I don’t care - knowing that someone has made that inner connection with a deeper part of themselves (or a partner) to me is such an awesome feeling. The fact that I am earning an advanced degree in a field that has such a wide potential for good is just icing on the cake.