Howdy: As mentioned in at least two pieces within this same series ::: I have decided to take what was supposed to a 10-Part and make it a 15-Part. This means that Parts 1, 6, and 11 will be about learning, education, and the general betterment of self. Parts 2, 7, and 12 will be about love. So far, these are the Kelly Pieces. Currently, I don’t plan to continue on about Kelly in Part 12. I guess both you and I will have to wait and see what the whole thing is about. In Parts 3 and 8, I have talked about where my actions may amount to idiocy. I plan to continue this line of thinking in Part 13. Parts 4, 9, and 14 concern my life as a musician. Finally, Parts 5, 10, and 15 are about my life as an adventurer. You know what. Here’s a list:
- My Life As A Student
- Kelly and I Part 1
- A Dehydrated Hike in Georgia
- My Musical HIstory
- Kayaking To Molokini
- My Life As A Teacher
- Kelly And I Part 2
- Mistakes Versus Bad Decisions
- The Making Of Alien Pop Part 1
- Bodhi And Me
This is everything so far. This is what has been written, is available. Now, let me begin Part 11, label :%: LEARNING IN GENERAL.
INSERT IMAGE OF A PERSON, PROBABLY A STUDENT, _not_ LEARNING
ALL LOOKS FINE
BUT ISN’T
Man, I had 2 think REAL hard about what to write here. In the first two sister pieces, namely Parts 1 and 6, I spoke of my life in education. Well, what else do I have to talk about there? I’ve been a student and a teacher. Any ideas? I know. Well, I finally came to a point, as always. Let this piece of post be about my life as a learner. My curiosity, which has been profound since I was born, has ALWAYS led me to learn new things, acquire new skills. And this is a good thing. Because, it allows me to spend my days doing so many things ATOP rather TOP levels. To wit, and just today, I woke up. If it ended there, even for you, perhaps you should consider getting a life? Well, in my case, I was writing a new song within an hour of waking up. I then played my set, which I practice almost every single day. Then, I worked on some math, the Twin Prime Conjecture, a bona fide pain in the ass. And, in case you’re not convinced that this problem is as such, just ask Dr. Terrance Tao, since you all seem to know who HE is. But, I bet you can’t name even ONE of his results or ANY of his papers. I might ask you, then, why do you know him? Know OF him? For what?
TERRANCE, WATERING HIS LAWN
TAO, STANDING IN LINE
A SMILE, IS THAT dR. TT?
Either way, I worked on the math problem. Then, I played my set, AGAIN, wrote a little more, before finally going back to the math again. Finally, after making some delicious outdoor sandwiches and fighting with an actual swarm of bees, I moved on to writing this blog. So far, that’s writing, and math, and cooking, AND MUSIC, and staying alive. All of this would be fine and hobby, be it not for the LEVEL at which I am doing these things. For example, I had to sit and think today about the theory behind resolving the two keys in my song. I had written my verses in C Major, my choruses (to the same song) in the key of Em. This amounts to following the circle of fifths to G, then using THAT key’s relative minor. I know, time to go back to bed. But, this is my time. And so how I spend my LIFE points. I ALWAYS SEEK to learn new things, figure out some old ones too. Especially the ones that haven’t been solved in a while. But, what’s the point? I don’t care. I am a fan of math for math’s sake, and so it’s love. I love math.
A WELL-TIMED PAUSE
AWKWARD
BUT TOTALLY USEFUL
On other days, you may find me riding BMX to a level that makes packs of little kids form groups for the watching, usually. And, no, I am not bragging. There’s something in my soul that doesn’t care about society’s need to seem like a piece of crap. You ARE good at things, and if you are actually good at these things, then feel free to talk about that. Keeping it all inside is merely a way for you to be controlled. Simone is a beast at mastering. That’s a fact. And so he should say that, he is. Dangle. But, the math. I am attempting to set up a probabilistic sieve, of the infinite kind, to the Twin Prime Conjecture. I did this before, in a more amateur way, and submitted it, and it was reviewed, but was ultimately rejected. And that’s OK. I hadn’t really solved it. But, I DID make it very believable. Oh, and in naming this file just now, I accidentally typed All In Time Due Part 101. Yeah, don’t let me talk THAT much. There IS difference between a blog, and a memoir, and an outright assault of your time. I know, you’re dying. And that sucks, so thanks for reading. Maybe you’re learning something too? I hope so.
Regardless, this IS about learning, after all, and so the pages help. In reality, whatever THAT may be, I have been a student my whole life, notwithstanding whatever the hell we call(ED) primary education in this country. FULL STOP.%. But, I don’t mean to sound too cynical. Still, the students that come to me in college (i.e., those who attended primary school a LONG TIME AGO) are often ill-equipped for studying math. And, seeing as this is OK, I am OK with it. Still, this isn’t to say there’s NOTHING you can do to bolster your OWN sense of learning and knowledge. As such, let me detail some of the ways I learn, THINGS. By now, you know WHAT I do. But, you’re probably not entirely sure HOW I do THESE THINGS. As such, let me help you out.
A DUCK, HELPING ANOTHER DUCK
TO SUCCEED
Perhaps it makes sense to begin with the guitar? I HAD “owned” (?) Roberto’s guitar for something like two decade, never playing it and not really opening the case. So that doesn’t count. At all. Not even as learning. I played drums in a metal band well before I started playing guitar, though, so let me start there. When it comes to the drums, I just beat(ED) on the things until I was good enough to walk into a Sam Ash music store three (3) times, genuinely so. But, when it came to learning the guitar, an instrument with FAR more tones than a drum SET, I had to be a bit more fundamental about the whole thing. I had to be CAREFUL. Regardless, my drive to ACTUALLY LEARN music brought me to a point where I knew my major chords, their minors, and certain OTHER triad colorings, in like a month. This is how I did it: I started with a C Major chord. THE easiest and MOST used chord of all time. Well, our time. So, C, then D, then E, and before you knew it, I could play all of my major chords, which meant I could start writing? No. Not yet. I wanted a COLORFUL palette and 12 major chords is only, OK as such a thing. So, I learned the minor chords, too, which led me to understanding HOW the keys, scales, and modes work. In general, once you understand how keys work, you shouldn’t really find yourself out of key. But, who knows. Perhaps I’m biased in this, being naturally born with the ability (I would later find out, after having learned the guitar) to sing virtually the entire piano, minus some of the highest notes in the final (i.e, 7th) octave. However, I can sing all the way down below where the piano begins (on the left). So, this makes for about a piano’s worth of tones I can ACTUALLY SING. And to think, I HAD NO CLUE. THIS should very well tell you, rather explicitly, that YOU TOO should try things. Because you never KNOW when you’ll find yourself good at something. And it’s good to be good, man.
Fun Fact: Major scales consist, beginning from their initial tone, referred to as THE TONIC, of the increments Whole-Whole-Half-Whole-Whole-Whole-Half. As such, one may form a MAJOR CHORD by playing the tonic, another tone, two whole-tones away, and, finally, a third tone, 1.5 whole-tones away.
SOME USEFUL LINKS:
Majors, minors. And by now, chord colorings, things like what a suspended chord actually is, how to construct a diminished chord in any key allowing it. Things like the MORE exotic extended chords that most will IMMEDIATELY recognize as JAZZ. And jazz is good, Jimmy. And this reminds me, man. That THE Clash’s London Calling album is about as perfect as an album can be. These-Those people REALLY knew-know-knew how to make some FINE music. I ACTUALLY know of Montgomery Clift, from TOO MANY films, and so ACTUALLY find it funny. Oh, and you know Rancid? the band? Yeah, that’s a Clash cover band. Just ask the chords. But, I mean no offense and am not generally offended by derivatives. Either way, and too, don’t let me get TOO side-tracked here. This is about learning, not whether or not Rancid is original.
RANCID, AS THE CLASH, AS RANCID, COVERING A CIRCLE
So. there’s the music. But, when it comes to MATH, it takes a special form of learning and knack to go from taking undergraduate differential equations, to teaching the same, to taking, with NO CLASSES IN BETWEEN, the analysis sequence. And, in case you’re not privy to what analysis IS, just check it out:
Some Stuff Most People Don’t Understand
Suffice to say, it’s Calculus, with a more rigorous presentation. In such class-classes, the expectation is that you’ll prove the theorems you PRESUMABLY learned in your regular Calculus courses. This, and more. Here-There, I was introduced to things like Lebesgue Integration, which allows EVERYONE to integrate over stranger functions than they’re used to. Dangle. Dangle. This, and things like Lp Spaces, where we focus on extending the typical notion of THE norm, which you either know as the absolute value, or don’t know at all. And I will not judge you for these things. It takes A LOT of time and effort to torture yourself so mathematically. And I did it. With knack, and finesse. And you can too. I believe it. This is what I tell my students. And MEAN it!
IMAGE OF A 1000 STUDENTS IN A SINGLE ROOM
“AI” “TEACHING” THEM “CALCULUS”
THEY LEARN NOTHING
AND SO do NOTHING
_and it sucks_
Now, how does taking courses relate to learning you might naively ask? Well, it takes focus, and patience, and a genuine will to learn to do stuff like what I have as yet described in this piece. What else is there? BMX. I started riding BMX at the age of 15, when I soft-lied my way into a telemarketing job, which allowed me to buy MY relevant bike. Of course, I shouldn’t have had this job. When they eventually found out (that I WASN’T greater than or equal to 16), they let me go. Being of insufficient age to fully understand, I made a stink. $$ In retrospect, I should have just accepted the boot. But, instead, I proclaimed something along the lines of “You suck, man,” as the manager of the call center asked me to leave, AND in front of EVERYONE that HAPPENED to work there, at the time. I WAS making good money, as personability USED to be tied to things like that. Maybe it still is, but I don’t tend to stay on the phone with telemarketers anymore, so who knows. Maybe SOME people never have?
SOME people
RIDING
A singular BMX bike
THIS first bike, ultimately stolen outside of that mall right down the street from where they dropped me off when I returned on that Greyhound, after the whole Kelly thing, was a Haro. It was a GREAT bike and I used it to hurt myself quite often. Oh, what fun% man. Eventually, my friends had BMX bikes too, and so we began spending our teen-aged-days riding all over Pinellas County looking for implements, things that COULD make a bike trick look REALLYcool. What a sweaty time we had. Still to this day, I can recall SO MANY of these locations, all probably by now no longer allowed. Recall that, while YOUNGER folks commit LESS crimes, they are arrested MORE OFTEN than their parents. Talk about a police state. Talk about the wrong direction.
ONE DIRECTION
PLAYING
WITH THEIR BACKS
TURNED TO THE AUDIENCE
SOMETHING, SOMETHING GODARD
Oh, and don’t look into Jean-Luc Godard. He, to me, represents a character in the infinitely-tarnishable story-line of Assisted Suicide. And, while there ARE genuine cases where such a thing is actually NECESSARY, I don’t think all is usually lost. I will be honest, I have looked into it. Maybe you have too. It’s part of having mental health issues of a certain color. Is this the same color as some of the chords I’ve learned? Did some special chord do that to me? I don’t know. And as always, I don’t really care. Wow, do I know how to roll the ball over the bumpers. And. speaking of this, I once had a man at an open mic, one whom I spent Thanksgiving with one year, in Boulder, tell me that I “coin a lot of phrases.” As always, the people of Colorado, NATIVE DUMMY and/or otherwise, LOVE to use the word “A LOT.” It’s how they attempt to level the distance between their inflated self and your actual self. So, when you go to visit Colorado, or have the unfortunate opportunity to live there, just look for it. Like a bird, not in a tree, EVER. Ever. Never.
But, and not losing sight of the goal too very much, let me get back to the biking. We LOVED riding around, doing tricks, and even getting hurt. Because, when it comes to extreme sports, LEARNING how to take a hurt is PART of the whole thing. It’s why I, an individual having breached 40, is still able to ride a bike like this. That, and the fact that I am so careful that I don’t really ever fall. I do the same trick(s) over and over and over again, until I can do IT without falling. I don’t knock my teeth out like that guy in Longmont going for that one trick he won’t be able to remember the next day. I take things VERY SLOWLY. And while this piece so far seems to be about learning things fast, it is not. It’s about being able to learn, pretty much anything you want to, just by keeping your mind in the right place.
DID EINSTEIN OWN A GUN?
DID HE EVER HAVE TO?
WHAT ABOUT EISENSTEIN?
QED — AND
For some reason, I feel VERY much like Hunter S. today. I am bobbing back and forth to about the slowest music possible, typing at something like an arrestable offense. I’m talkin’ REALLY FAST. If I had a typewriter, it would be making an ORDINANCE level of noise. Then there’s that one time I landed a single tailwhip top-tube, out of a drainage ditch. And it felt good. Tailwhips are NOT an easy thing to do. And while I still haven’t done another since, it still counts. I can still say I HAVE landed one. But, to this day, I dream about doing a real one. Of course, in the accompaniment of a few cups. I’m not sure of what, but yeah, some cups NEED to be involved. Reminder: a tailwhip involves airing your bike, while holding the handle bars, then spinning the bike around said handle bars, all while avoiding ANY of it hitting YOU. I know, CRAZY. We did grinds, and other things too. I can remember Big Will Turbo grinding that rail outside the post office in Clearwater. Will’s a cop now, I think, especially if he’s still doing that, but maybe he still rides? Chris Day rode too, while Ashley tried. Perhaps Ashley was the most sensible of us all, choosing to study history instead of taking certain chances with BECOMING history.
IMAGE OF A GROUP OF SHITTY LOOKING kids
RIDING BMX bikes
AS THOUGH NOTHING ELSE mattered
AND IT’S GOOD, and will always be good
Man, this started as a single page, and now, some twenty five minutes in, I’m at like 4. What the fuck is wrong with me? Please, don’t answer that. I’ll take NOT KNOWING _THIS ONE_ ANY day. We did a lot of flat-land too, learning how to make use of parking lots in ways that only certain CONFUSED individuals could comprehend. And we comprehend(ed). We learned. We kept at it. So much so that, later on, when I had moved to Colorado, briefly (BUT LONG ENOUGH TO KNOW), I started riding again. I had never aired quarters. I had never aired 12 FOOT QUARTERS, when I was a kid. But, I do this as an adult. As what they refer to as a middle-aged man. Goodness does it suck to write THAT. I am still a kid behind the eyes, and until I can prove that all is not behind the eyes, I will choose, whether by choice or by force of my ways, choose to remain a kid. I still do kid-like things all the time. Call me a man-child. I AM one, and so don’t give a shit about you saying that. Did they not say something about coming to GOD in the form of a child? Well, that’s what I’m doing.
GOD, IN HIS BOXER SHORTS
HAVING A COCKTAIL
CHICKS EVERYWHERE
Persistence, and autism, hyperfocus. These are a few of my favorite things. These are the things that get me through learning so much. It’s how I have a relatively high level of mastery over my “hobbies,” some of which went on, and WILL GO ON, to become jobs. Math, BMX, and music. In general, this COULD just be how mathematicians are. And, if you’re not such an one, all of my advice here might be pointless for you. But, I don’ believe this. I believe, instead, that EVERYONE can learn this or that. All it takes is time. AKA for person P, let P(t) >= M be that person getting to mastery, and let THEIR appropriate t be the amount of time they do it in. ALL can do. But, for some, it will take a lot more time. For the genius, it usually takes less time. But, they have other problems and so maybe time is not the only element. I mean, just look at John Nash. The dude from a Beautiful Mind. I can completely-fully understand his mental health issues, can see what his life was like. And, in the absence of such beautiful problems, maybe pulchritudiny is not possible.
POLISH DETECTED
Still, the point here is to let you, the reader, know that learning wild things is possible. You need not wait until you’re a man to air quarters. You CAN do that now. Still, if you’ve not ridden a bike at such an ignorant a level, then maybe take things slow. Now, what the hell else can I mention, now that this whole thing reads like “I’m better than you.” To wit, I once had a friend say that he, and virtually everyone I grew up with, believed me to be FAKE HUMBLE. Well, let me correct this notion. I have become good at these things precisely because I am NOT being fake. I am so humble that I think I’m shit. And I’m being serious. But, why would I say such a thing in a piece MEANT to be INSPIRATIONAL? Because YOU might have IMPOSTER SYNDROM too. But, this is not to say that you’re not good at things. It took so much therapy to get to a point where I can actually see myself as good at anything. My therapist looked at me shocked and said “you don’t see yourself as smart,” and through my usual and high dose of honesty, I replied “No.” And that’s being TOTALLY HONEST. Like I said, this is part of the reason I do things to such a high level. Because I cannot see it. Only recently, and after a massive amount of honest praise, can I see myself as a genuine musical entity.
MUSIC
ALL SONGS EVER
COMING FROM THE SAME CAR
NOT SURE HOW THEY DO
BUT THEY DO
Do I look homeless? Do I smell like IT? Either way, I am looked upon like I am. Even when I had the best paying job of my life. And this is to say, to hell with the others. DO NOT let the Mary Thurmans of your life kill your flow. Sing, anyway. Go out and get a guitar (NOT AT ANY SAM ASHES OTHER THAN THE BIG ONE OFF THE HIGHWAY IN CLEARWATER, THE GOOD ONE). Try, and do. Try it again. And, no, I am not being vapid. I am being genuinely humble. You are listening, right now, to the brain waves of a person who has spent their ENTIRE LIFE trying to impress a father that never really existed. Mine was too psychotic to see ANYTHING clearly. And, based on my readings, following meeting a man WORSE than my father, they cannot help but see EVERYTHING as conflict. They take your smile for you laughing at them. As such, they throw away all of your stuff, and/or leave stealth vandalism across all of your cherished possessions. To wit, and moving on, I can still remember Allan standing up, when I confronted him about ruining a majority of my clothes, and saying “You don’t see any snags in my clothes, do you?” This is the nature of assholes in their purest form. These people, people like my father, cannot help but suck ass so much.
Still, I need to move on. To a better place.
[A HELPFUL HINT:
Learning is MUCH easier when you’re INVESTED
As such, take a project, any project, of personal value
And use it to propel you toward TRUE LEARNING
Taking things slow
And keep with it
]
Now, Let us stop and do some thinking. Doing is fine, typing is fine. But, we need to THINK. What things have you tried to learn? What things have you put down, simply because they weren’t precisely easy to do, didn’t speak to your MODERN character? Well, please allow me to call you out. Just like I did that student, in front of the whole class on the first day, in Boulder. I said “Does anyone here ride BMX too?” And one student replied that they rode similarly. I then said “Do you do tricks, such as etc. etc.?” When they said NO, I said, “Well, you have something to aspire to.” I saw their gap as an opportunity. And this is how I’ve spent my whole life. Trying to impress the shittiest people, while shying away from the kinds of people that COULD actually help. And this is all due to the former being what I understand. But, back to the pro, gram. What do you want to learn? And why are you not starting, to learn it? It took me going BORDERLINE MAD, from abuse, to motivate a former student to start writing. And, judging from the nature of their writing, they SHOULD have been doing this the whole time. I believed in them when they were in my class, and that, to me, never goes away.
This is to you, Michael. This piece is in YOUR honor. And, in the honor of EVERYONE like you, who should be doing what they SHOULD HAVE been doing the whole time. I believe in all of you. But, I can’t say that this is how ANYONE has treated me, especially before I got my PhD. I mean, something like being called fake humble means that those saying THINK you’re just being humble for SOME OTHER PURPOSE. What junk. Like I’ve said in other parts of this series: I am compulsively honest, and do not experience much in the way of embarrassment. Perhaps THIS is a recipe for being perceived as an asshat. That guy, another guy, at that open mic in Longmont, said to me, in no uncertain terms, and with a mass of astonishment, “You don’t see it? You have no ego, whereas the other musicians here have too much.” Why is this so? I COULD put it all up to being raised so poor|y. I COULD talk about attachment styles and how they are formed so early on. These things, in turn, BUILD RESPONSES, CREATE GHOSTS. Stable environments, on the other hand, create children who SHOULD be more likely to believe in themselves accurately. Children, and some years later, adults, who do things without worrying about the Marys, of the world.
But, me. I only hear the Marys.
Don’t.
Now, what have I failed to include? So far, you have a VERY ECCENTRIC man-child telling you how to study and do some of the most complicated things. I have been called a genius, and here this doesn’t help. One should ALWAYS take the words of the hyper-intelligent with a grain of salt, much like listening to a guy born rich describing how to become rich. It’s easy! Don’t you see it? All you have to do (snaps fingers in the manner of a car salesman) is succeed. Yeah, OK. All it really took was being born, and as I have said elsewhere too, life has fees to do things and some of us are born below the bottom. Our time-to-event is something like 10 lifetimes. We |NEVER% STOOD A CHANCE. Houses, a car, a few boats? These are what people spend their whole life getting to, when the rich does it at birth. That’s NEGATIVE social PROGRESS.
[ANOTHER HELPFUL HINT:
Be persistent in your learning, be stubborn
Put the thing down only when you HAVE TO DO SO
Annoy people
With your persistence
]
OK, so I took a break from this, if only to step back from my capacity to rant, especially about bad people and THEIR places. Now, let me talk about two more things that I have had to learn: PEOPLE, and GAMES. I’ll start with the games, if only to annoy you based on that last sentence. Me too. So, I make games. I have spent a decent amount of time learning how to create, play, and USE GAMES. I believe, like many others, that gaming is a lot fun and often a great way to learn about yourself. I’ve played a lot of video games in my life, some of my favorites being the Mat Hoffman and Dave Mirra games of the 2000’s as well as Call of Duty. Man, have I spent a lot of time playing these games. And while I haven’t created any video games, I HAVE created board games and card games. To wit, and while dealing with an ACTUAL PSYCHO, I made a card game by the name of 24, KINGS. The point of this game is to win, by way of points and rules. Like life. And, WELCOME to EVERY game EVER.
[KEEP THE HINTS COMING, DUDE:
Make a game out of your learning
Have fun with it
Break down what you can | down to parts
Annoy people
]
Now, how does this all relate to learning? Well, it takes a lot of thinking to make a good game. And that stuff comes with time. And focus. In the case of 24, KINGS, I merely sat down and, based on a few fundamental/mathematical ideas, wrote the entire game. At first this came in the form of a bunch of scribbles on printer paper. Then, an actual rule set (which is available on this very website). Finally, I played the thing, made sure the mechanics were fully GREASE MONKEY, I finalized the rules. Then, I posted the game and heard nothing. No one has mentioned ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME. Still, I am not soured by this. Someday, people will. I know it, because the game is a lot of fun. Trust me, I played it by myself for hours upon hours. But, this is NOT the only game I’ve ever made. I can recall distinctly making board games out of pizza boxes growing up. My father was a drug dealer and a pizza man, which afforded me a fair amount of used pizza boxes. Fortunately, the whole thing wasn’t too greasy.
A BOY, COVERED IN GREASE
INVENTING SHIT
My sisters and I, and here’s to hoping they remember this stuff, would ACTUALLY PLAY the games, I made. And while I can’t recall any of the exact, specific details, I do know, much like that radio I TRIED TO MAKE out of a Pringles can (before radio systems actually looked like this), that making the thing required creativity and persistence, plugging a random cable into a wall socket and shocking the shit out of myself. Oh, and I once, and also, as a very young kid, tried to “drive the house” by putting a key into an electrical socket. Let this represent TWO SEPARATE TIMES that I was shocked by strange ideas. While I didn’t finish the radio, I did finish the board game. Perhaps this stuff is necessity built upon being so poor? Either way, I don’;t think that’s it. I believe it to be curiosity, and learning, and persistence. These are the kinds of things that one can do if they learn to. Dangle.
So, as to not let this THING go on too long, and so as to fully round out this random mess, my life as a GENERAL LEARNER, let me speak about people.
EVERY PERSON I’VE EVER MET
IN A SINGLE IMAGE
IT’S A _VERY_ BIG IMAGE
I am not in general an easy person to understand, and in no way would I suppose to understand ANYONE else. I look at how people interact and it doesn’t make any sense. So, it’s taken some work to get to the point of being in front of people, in some cases hundreds. I’ve given talks, have taught courses, and have taken part in entrepreneurship endeavors that required me to describe and discuss certain progressions of business, to large groups of BUSINESS TYPES. I AM friendly. And will NOT allow anyone to say otherwise. However, I do not handle forgiveness very well at all. As such, if someone does some random thing I consider to be a sign of a toxic person, I will kick them to the curb in a heartbeat. In this way, I have kept my life LESSER in stress, and more free. But, when things are still pre-forgiveness, I will go out of my way for people. And these are LEARNED things.
FOR BETTER OR WORSE, WE ARE
PARTIAL STOP, FULL STOP
BUT NEVER _ANY_ “AI” SLOP
It took whatever empathy I had to begin with, mixed with a massive amount of time learning the ways and personalities of other people to get to that point. Still, there’s that mechanic asshole in Santa Fe, Dawud, who broke my stove, a recent gift, and then attempted to lie/gaslight me about it. It took him giving me a talking to, and me calling the cops, for him to pay for the stove. During the talking to, he went on about how rude I was (because I introduced myself as Dr. Ryan Matthew Thurman and asked about how safe it was leaving my car in his shop with so much of MY STUFF in it) and how much of what I do is wrong. But, HE had done something wrong and so I largely chose to ignore him. As he raised his voice and I the clench of my fists, I realized that much of what people take wrong with me is simply a projection of themselves, and an inability to see how THEY need help. Also, lacking embarrassment doesn’t help. It’s why I say things in front of students that some find shocking. Still, I mean well ALL THE TIME. And ALL IN DUE TIME.
HE SAID IT AGAIN!
THAT’S THE TITLE OF THIS SERIES
AND HE’S THE AUTHOR
so, I FEEL EXCITED
There I go, telling you how to feel, like a piece of beautiful music running through an otherwise grunt-filled fight scene. Imagine it, you’re watching a rather Spartan film, and the music cuts out. Men, in costumes grunting, with fake swords. And this is why the beautiful music. Now, lest this become about how I encounter people who make me feel like an asshole, let me get back to the point. I HAVE LEARNED to deal with people, to do the right thing, mostly based on a sense of what works best for the perpetuation and betterment of society herself. Double point, antagonists will happen. The world is full of shit, and so the people in it tend to reek at a rate that shouldn’t be that way. Part of my reason for saying all of this is to let you know that, no matter how much social learning you do, YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND ANTAGONISTS. Some people take kindness for a weakness, because their brains are fucking broken. And this is in no uncertain terms. Often, everything they do is to make themselves feel better, as if other people are merely functions of them. Still, much can be learned. Much can be done.
YOU, THE READER
MEETING ME, THE WRITER
AT THE WORDS, FOR NOW
So, to recap. I have learned to do MATH, BMX, and MUSIC at a very high level, ALL THROUGH LEARNING. These are things I have learned. There’s learning too, learning herself. That too is a skill, a thing to be learned. By the end of your degree, if you can learn on your own, this might be a pretty good sign, that your teacher(s) have done something special to you. Wow, phrasing. Perhaps, some students like this phrasing. To wit, I once had a student leave a review along the lines of “I am so in love with Professor Thurman that I don’t know what to do with myself. If I could marry him, I would.” Talk about learning. Talk about a VERY COOL REVIEW. Imagine being the department reading this, and imagine WHERE their brains will take THEM, as relates to their perceptions of you. In this case, you’ll hear things like “I think you’re trying too hard to be liked.” Well, fuck off. Being a friend and support structure to students is NOT the problem. It was NOT the problem before BIG TECH took over education in this country.
Bumpers. Keep the ball in the lane. You were doing SO well there for a minute.
IMAGINE, A MAN DOING WELL AS A WOMAN
OK, AS A MAN
BEST, AS A CLOWN
Then, as far as learning is concerned, I talked about things like games, and people, and learning to learn. These are the contents. This is the pressure.
Now, please allow me turn this whole thing ONTO YOU, one more time, once more. What do YOU do? What do you WANT to do? And, WHAT LEARNING is required to close THE GAP between these things? Are you good at ANYTHING I have mentioned here? If so, what have I missed? So much goes into typing randomly and hoping that the whole thing is a whole, has a decent path and at least one point. I WANT to learn. Say it with me: I WANT TO LEARN. Then, once you’re bored of that, insert a thing. LOL. Literal dangle. I WANT TO LEARN IMPROV. BTW, I did. I spent 5 years doing improv, including both long-form and short-form performances. And now that I have the time to think about it, this was all about learning people. I WANT TO LEARN TO WRITE. OK, well read some books. These are your examples. I WANT TO PLAY MUSIC. Do you play now? And if not, what is stopping you? Mary? A horse that you have to take care of? What is it? I WANT TO DO SOMETHING ADVENTUROUS. I WANT TO CAMP. I could do this forever, go on twice as long. But, this is about YOU. Matter of fact, everything I write is about you. I am just using myself to make it work. And, in this way, I was born a teacher. A curious learner, too.
IMAGE OF AUTHOR COVERED IN BOOKS
EMPTY PAGES
WITH | TO START
So, Let’s learn. Let’s make a point to buck stupid, as a trend. People read less now than they used to. They go outside less too. Well, do the opposite. Make it all such a point. Make a point to listen where needed. To the MONSTERS qualifying as antagonists in your life, listen where needed, but leave the rest to their projections. Do not take yourself down with THEM. DO, NOT.
Because, you’re better than that.
PS — Dude, I got chills writing this. I feel like I might actually be helping people to become better. And that’s cool. As for the proofing, I’m not even SURE I want to learn THAT. I do not look forward to proofing this. I should stop thinking out loud. I might just come off as pretentious, rude, and whatever else people have projected upon me. From a perch of genuine humbleness.
Cheers.
And thanks for reading %%%%
P-Dubs: I made more busking than I ever had before, yesterday.
All I had to do was play well, and be friendly.
All I had to do REALLY, was learn.
Statistical Consulting from analytllc 
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