BigFricken Education
Although many may consider me a prodigy the reality is that when I was born the only things I could do was eat, sleep, crap and cry. While those abilities were more than sufficient for a period of time, the older I got the fewer people there were that were impressed by that particular skill set. Thus began my education, both formal and otherwise.
The years I spent in school were certainly not wasted, although you may find more than one of my past teachers to argue that point vehemently. But far and away, I place the greatest value on those nuggets of wisdom I have acquired outside of the hallowed halls of education. Not that trigonometry and theoretical physics are not important subjects. It’s just that I have found absolutely no practical use for Maxwell’s equations or Quantum mechanics in the Wal-Mart aisles of my everyday humdrum existence.
Robert Fulghum’s bestselling book “All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten” was a delightful read. Unfortunately for me it took a lot longer to learn the really valuable lessons than the four years I spent in Mrs. Abear’s class. I am a firm believer that the really important stuff is the stuff you learn after you already know everything. I guess since I have in fact known everything since I was about 10 years old I have had ample time to complete this higher education.
To say “if I only knew then what I know now” is a moot point. I didn’t know what I didn’t know because I didn’t know I needed to know it. Life and school teach in exact opposite ways. In life you get the test first and the lesson comes after. And only with that education of hard knocks does one not only learn the lesson, but more importantly one learns the importance of the lesson learned. I still carry the scars from some of these valuable lessons and have alimony check stubs to remind me of others. As I tell my children, I am not as smart as I am today because I did everything right.
I have indeed learned from my mistakes and that education could fill volumes. While I remember only a modicum of what I learned in school I remember with great clarity those lessons that I learned by doing it wrong, or if not completely wrong, at least not as well as I could have. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that no matter how colossal the mistake, if there is a name for it in the dictionary you’re not the first one to do it.
Here are a couple of other valuable life lessons I have learned:
1. If you are a man and you come home and find tampon wrappers in the bathroom garbage can it’s a good idea to shut up, read a book and go to bed early.
2. You can tell a lot about a person’s character by the way they treat the wait staff and busboys at a restaurant.
3. Never use the expression “a couple” if it is in fact more than two.
4. In all of recorded history nobody has ever been stuck in a traffic jam that never cleared up.
5. I do not have sufficient mental recall to be a successful liar.
6. Truth is exclusive and refusal to accept it does nothing to change it.
7. Some dogs show their teeth when they see you because they are happy and that’s how they smile.
8. Some dogs are not smiling.
In an effort to further develop my Sherpa skills I have developed a great passion for reading. I credit this passion rather than a high fiber diet for my above average degree of regularity. Or maybe it’s the other way around, I’m not sure. Either way my book shelves are overflowing with volumes of non-fiction tomes. Perhaps you have noticed in previous pieces my affinity to reference George Orwell’s classic “1984” which I definitely include into the non-fiction category. The authors works contained on my shelves have offered me countless suggestions on how to learn some of life’s important lessons. Some with entire books or chapters dedicated to a particular subject and some with just a passing comment that I carry with me like a life line. I have found the key is to use these learned folk’s words as a map for planning the trip rather than an emergency escape plan for when you end up where you don’t want to be. It is impossible for me to visit a book store or even the Amazon web site without picking up another book. I understand from some of the bright people in my neighborhood that there is a building in my town where people go and get books to read for free. I hear they call it a lie-bra-ree. I guess if your taste in books is more in the Tom Clancy variety it would work OK. But for the types of books I read, by authors like C.S. Lewis, Jack Welch, Thomas Sowell, Antonin Scalia and Max Lucado, why would I want a book when somebody else has already read up all the smart stuff? I also feel that the ownership of the book somehow entitles me to a greater degree of ownership of the ideas in the book. That’s the type of advanced thinking that makes many people consider me a prodigy. Plus I love the irony of buying a book to improve my mental and spiritual well being, knowing that somebody had to cut down a tree, likely in the Amazon Rain Forest, to make the paper for it.
When I was a kid television was a pretty good babysitter but wasn’t much of a learning experience. That is unless you consider the proper grip used to throw a cream pie as an important life skill. Today children learn all sorts of things thanks to educational TV. They learn their ABC’s and how to count to twelve on Sesame Street. They learn how to be a good neighbor and play well with others on Mr. Rogers. Both of these classic shows are on commercial free PBS stations. On almost every commercial television station, at any time of day or night, six year old boys and girls all over America learn that Priapism is an erection lasting longer than four hours and if you get it you should seek immediate medical attention. Aside from that piece of valuable medical advice I too have learned a few things from television. Just the other day while waiting for an oil change I saw my first broadcast of the ABC morning show “The View”. I now know what the hoof beats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse sound like.
