Posted by tylerdane 16 hours ago
I started playing pool in college around 2017 and, without really intending to, it became something I did at least once a week. I never had a structured practice routine or any goal of getting really good. I just enjoyed playing, and after enough years I realized I'd become a decent player.
I never gambled, but we usually played loser-pays, so every session still cost a bit. I'm unemployed right now, so I've stopped going because it just doesn't fit my budget anymore.
Kids are conditioned to associate learning with a formal course with a tutor culminating in exams.
It's also intentional to segregate skills, if schools taught every child basic plumbing or car mechanics for example instead of spending a month teaching something that won't get used in life, there would be less job in those fields.
We used to have "shop" (or similarly named) classes for this in junior high/middle school. They have mostly been cut, but more for budgetary reasons. A lot of high schools still have a vocational department for the kids who are not college-bound and not complete wasteoids.
Learning for the sake of learning is one of my favorite things in life.
Even older kids... my 6 year old is jumping on the couch as I type this..
I like remote work but when I had to commute it was really nice to have that downtime built in to the day. I learned a lot of Dutch vocabulary on the train.
One day you will pick them up and, and most likely neither of you will know it, but it will be the last time you ever do.
Treasure everything, even the insanity.
If you are rich, you can get around this by hiring people to take care of the children, so then it could be possible, but it will still be a huge financial burden.
I’ve honestly never been able to understand this kind of thinking (uniformly ruling children as a negative because of the downsides), but I’d be curious to understand more about your perspective.
How do you weigh the joy and meaning many people find in having a family against the economic and time freedom costs?
Or the fact that societies do need to continue having children in order to: sustain economic growth, service their elderly population (that will be us in a few years to decades), maintain their armed forces, perpetuate their culture and values into the future, invest in scientific research, etc.
Are these not things you value? Or do you just see the tradeoff as not worth it?
I don't understand what the point of hiring people to take care of mine would be. That's the fun part. Makes about as much sense as going to an amusement park and paying someone to take the rides for you.
We did buy a more expensive home to live near better peers, but that's not really a consumption issue; it's a cultural one.
1) learning how to learn; and
2) using projects to learn
Writing about your experience in learning is also a powerful tool. If you can describe it to your journal (or someone else), you really know it.
Did you do a teaching degree or equivalent, or something a bit more theoretical/philosophical?
And who do you now teach?
Slightly off topic, but as a parent I found this hilarious and will now be closely watching to see if any of my own screaming logos ever perfectly hit the corner of a room.
https://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html
(Except, his essay insinuates that there is some kind of brilliance at work here. In my own case, that remains to be seen.)
Never have I ever managed to accomplish anything of merit by just heading straight for it in the plainspoken sense. Some people will say that provides the basic architecture of some kind of "diagnosis", but I think it's just a normal human variance.
I'd say most of the learning is done by actually doing.
Examples: under a sink, there were two 2m-long supply hoses, where 40cm would be enough, convoluted in a double loop together, to spare a visit to a DIY store. Or dowels made to be driven by hammer, for plastic baseboards, used to hang a cupboard (almost fell out). Or a too long corrugated plastic tube making a virage and another, unnecessary, water seal, and impeding outflux -- also to spare a visit to a store.