on a sunday afternoon
The guy who has his guitar lesson after me is named Robert. Throughout my life I have sort of played a game where I will make it a point to remember some distant person's name. The kind of person I might see every week, but really have no relation to at all. When I see them I like to act like we are old friends... It always takes the other person off guard, yet they don't really mind... you really have to be a good judge of temperment in these cases.
Robert is a high school student, I guess I like him because he was a lot like me when I was in highschool, sort of quiet with glasses and few social graces. I asked him how things were going. "Ok" he said. "Ok" I said "just OK? Oh come on!" that is me, ever the optimist. "Why?" I said. "Oh, all this homework" he replied. I quickly fell into a rant at how much work highschool is, and how one will never have to repeat it in their life. After this Robert looked a bit blank, and understandably didn't really know what to say, so he blurted "You are in college right?" ... I got out of college two years ago with a degree in statistics, usually such forgetfullness would annoy me, but I was willing to forgive my old friend.
The thing is that I had sort of become one of those older people I met in highshool. The types that seem subversive and wierd. The kind of person where you ache for the conversation to be over... the kind that just keeps going on some rant about how bad my life is... but it is true, it is easy to criticize high school of course. What, making kids sit forward, preventing them from talking, forcing them to pay attention for 8 hours a day... everything just sounds wrong... but nothing is more wrong than the workload... no one ever really NEEDS to work that hard... life is easy, that doesn't get said enough, so I will say it again: life is easy.
School, sadly, teaches the opposite... when you don't work hard enough in school, you get a lecture that is always ended with "just wait till you get in the real world". This leads people to believe that life is perpetual hard work, when faced with a problem, people think they must just work harder, nose to the grindstone, they don't really think to stop and innovate... or perhaps quit and transition to trying something else. I have a lot of co-workers like this, the kind that show just how dangerous the combination of pretension, idiocy, and a good work ethic are... it is absurd. Personally I like absurdity, so I will not dissent too often, but I will make my opinion known here, oh and maybe buy them all this poster:
Life is easy, really it is, very easy.
Robert is a high school student, I guess I like him because he was a lot like me when I was in highschool, sort of quiet with glasses and few social graces. I asked him how things were going. "Ok" he said. "Ok" I said "just OK? Oh come on!" that is me, ever the optimist. "Why?" I said. "Oh, all this homework" he replied. I quickly fell into a rant at how much work highschool is, and how one will never have to repeat it in their life. After this Robert looked a bit blank, and understandably didn't really know what to say, so he blurted "You are in college right?" ... I got out of college two years ago with a degree in statistics, usually such forgetfullness would annoy me, but I was willing to forgive my old friend.
The thing is that I had sort of become one of those older people I met in highshool. The types that seem subversive and wierd. The kind of person where you ache for the conversation to be over... the kind that just keeps going on some rant about how bad my life is... but it is true, it is easy to criticize high school of course. What, making kids sit forward, preventing them from talking, forcing them to pay attention for 8 hours a day... everything just sounds wrong... but nothing is more wrong than the workload... no one ever really NEEDS to work that hard... life is easy, that doesn't get said enough, so I will say it again: life is easy.
School, sadly, teaches the opposite... when you don't work hard enough in school, you get a lecture that is always ended with "just wait till you get in the real world". This leads people to believe that life is perpetual hard work, when faced with a problem, people think they must just work harder, nose to the grindstone, they don't really think to stop and innovate... or perhaps quit and transition to trying something else. I have a lot of co-workers like this, the kind that show just how dangerous the combination of pretension, idiocy, and a good work ethic are... it is absurd. Personally I like absurdity, so I will not dissent too often, but I will make my opinion known here, oh and maybe buy them all this poster:
Life is easy, really it is, very easy.