Who'd'a thought the initial post would make such an interesting conversation! Love it.
-- Owen On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > Marcus - > > My father, for better or worse, wanted/needed huge swaths of well traveled > territory to learn within. He went from Boy Scouts to Navy to College to > Civil Service, wearing uniforms much of that time, and learning (by rote) > the many standard forms they presented. It made him feel safe, it let him > be useful/performing in places he otherwise might not have. > > Somehow that sent me in an opposite direction, appreciating the core > tools, formalisms, methodologies not as an end, but as a means or more to > the point, a beginning, a point of departure. > > As I matured, I *did* discover that I was in fact often/usually > (re)inventing as I went and as you so aptly point out, I'm thankful for > having done so... the things I was "given" were never mine in the way the > things I "created" or "discovered" were. We are a curious species and > maintaining/feeding that curiosity seems to be an important part of our > nature. > > I would say my father's curiosity was limited to exploring a vast > landscape of things already laid out for him while mine was to blunder > around in wildernesses often of my own making, only to discover that I was > actually inside of a park so well groomed that at times it felt to be a > wilderness... early on, I resented discovering that my "inventions" were > really "re-discoveries" but at some point, I began to appreciate that with > some of them I was adding valuable nuances too. > > So rather than "knowing the names of the turtles all the way down", I got > to/had to make up names for them as I met them, and only later discover > that they had been named many times already. > > It seems to me the folks that are given the names don't value the names. > Clearly there is value in standard language for technical communication, > but harder for me to imagine being taught something but otherwise having no > intuition for it. I guess that's what many people expect, though? > > Marcus > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
