Here begins a great adventure, a learning experience (I'll certainly learn). This is so true of writers; some have told me that I'm a good writer (although several of my immediate managers seem to have preferred the term "wordy" :). We'll see....
I've thought of blogs as narcissistic, but instead intend this to be didactic without however being boring. One of my favorite roles has been mentor. I've frequently advised that you learn from experience, yours or another, and there probably won't be enough time to make all of the mistakes yourself (besides, some mistakes are fatal...), so better to learn from those of others. And because you'll never get to chat with all of those alive, let alone all humans, it's better to read what others have written. That opens up the centuries to your education. That's why reading is so vital. So perhaps I can cast my thoughts into that other Undiscovered Country, "pay it forward", that future readers might find enlightenment, or at least amusement.
But I'd like to devote my first blog to an entirely different and timely subject. Today is Thanksgiving 2009, and I want to be thankful, I want to honor those who have taught me. Some I honor are long gone, but not forgotten, some will probably never read these words anyway, and a very few will know.
- My parents are long gone. To them I owe both my excellent genes and my (IMHO) good values. I haven't shared the former, no children, but have tried to share the latter, enriching the lives of friends and family. To them I give (and gave, past times) the lyrics of a song Mary Travers sung:
I am your child
Wherever you go
You take me too
Whatever I know
I learned from you
Whatever I do
You taught me to do
I am your child
And I am your chance
Whatever will come
Will come from me
Tomorrow is won
By winning me
Whatever I am
You taught me to be
I am your hope
I am your chance
I am your child
Whatever I am
You taught me to be
I am your hope
I am your chance
I am your child
- My spouse has taught me a great deal, been the second most important influence on my character. And some of our feline children have been most vocal, in their own way, in my instruction.
- Various friends & lovers have taught me of the delicate intertwinings of friendship, love, & sex (you were expecting something else???). Some lessons I'll never recover from; East Lansing, Hartford, Cottonwood/Clarkdale/Sedona have all warped my judgements. But there were many good times too, many growings together, even a few whose lasting gifts will be with me to the end. We're neither herd animals nor solitary ones; we need each other. And there's only the one game in town; if you don't play, you won't get hurt, but you also won't learn.
- A legion of science fiction writers have helped shape me. I was in small-town Michigan with no friends, happened upon the library, and arbitrarily picked the Sci-Fi shelf to read. Some of the characters in the books were shallow as dinner plates, but some taught me values, ones reflected from society as well as the more idiosyncratic choices. Of course, it wasn't the characters who were there for me, but the authors. And not only did I learn values from them, I retained the love of the field as well, and over the years branched out into other genres.
- There were some from teaching professions who also taught me. Alas, almost all of their names are gone, it would seem that I remember only their lessons. I've forgotten the beautiful equations of graduate school, but still remember my n-space visualizations of them....
There's another aspect to memory, one that James Tiberius Kirk might have helped me with if I could have only found his "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" quote about pain and memory. Memories that encapsulate our behaviors, our thoughts, things we're proud of and things we're ashamed of, what exactly is there more to "self" than that? If I could reach back, and take away some truly poor choices that I made, then the learning would never have happened, in some sense I wouldn't be "me". So, just like the Captain, I need my mistakes, my pain, my sorrows and shames; they define me.
I can be thankful that I'm alive, that I'm enmeshed in webs of friendship, caring, & love, that there's another sunrise to witness, another starry firmament to wonder at, another smile to share, and another hill to climb (I wonder what's on the other side). But the debts, the obligations, the credits, the rememberings go to others for helping shape me into what I am.
And yes, those managers were probably right.... :)
