The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.
If you could pick one tool to use to survive in the jungle, which would use choose as your tool of survival? The bow and arrow or the net?
Anyone remember when Forrest Gump began that shrimping business, what did he use?
During my freshman year of high school, my English teacher took a paper I wrote as a class-wide example of how NOT to write. He made 30 copies of the first page of a paper we wrote on the Pearl for all other students to read, and proceeded to verbally crap all over it to the amusement of the class and my head-in-hand, foot-in-mouth chagrin. One of his quips that sent the class over the edge in laughter was his imitation of my paper's writing pattern. Apparently, it had been in the same pattern as the automobile driving of an enebriated individual: all over the place, unwieldy, and messy.
That was over 10 years ago, and you could say the same about the last 3 years of my career trajectory. All over the place. At home a lot. Half-the time employed, half the time, not. Been in government, non-government, non-profit, corporate, temporary, permanent, contract, part-time.
Careers I've thought about: water engineering, teaching history at a middle school high school, tutoring, fucking it all and going anarcho-primitivist, the Peace Corps, Real Estate Appraising, basic computer programming, technical writing, urban planning, GIS mapping. The part of my mind focused on the future is an internalization of the externality that is ITT Tech.
In my drive to graduate school, I've been looking at Anthropology programs and similar. Browsing research areas and interests, I also look for these students and professors having gaps in education. Looking at these pages, I've been trying to spot the same unwieldyness, and messiness in their education.
To my chagrin, I don't usually find any, which sometimes gives me a case of the Fuckin' A's.
From an outsiders' perspective, the regularity in these professors' career trajectories has been straightforward and tunnel-visioned, as if they were automatons created in a factory, specifically made for the purpose of doing what it is they do, accomplishing stuff only remote, snobby academic circles care about, and intimidating me.
They are arrows getting at their targets, and hitting it right "on point."
But arrows are only good for the kill.
All over place, unwieldy nets can help you make killings.
1 comment:
It is true that these academicians' trajectories seem straightforward and direct...ON PAPER. What is not articulated in these CVs is the thought process, the struggle, and the identity crises that they encountered throughout their paths. Sure, we've got scholars sitting in ivory towers who had their fate laid out for them, with all their and their families' capital. But with every 2 or 3 letters added behind one's name comes constant conflict and dissonance, career changes, and professional epiphanies. It's part of the journey.
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