Neanderpundit

I didn’t listen or watch, of course, but I heard clips this morning. When did Ron Paul start shilling for Romney?

You do so by thinking “I will do this for two years. I will get good at it, and I will end up by getting a gig with one of my customers. They will appreciate me and pay me well, and I will spend the rest of my days making them happy and making their business run well.”

At the end of two years, if you haven’t moved on, going to work in the same place every day seems like a death sentence. If I have to go somewhere more than twice in a week it feels like I’m going to develop rigor mortis and die.

Most of the field guys I know are like this. You wake up in the morning knowing today will never be like any other day before it, knowing that today will bring a new challenge, that you will have to use skills you have developed to learn to do something you have never done before, and to learn how to do it almost instantaneously.

At my age I have three decades of that experience. And it’s all in there, one place or another, just waiting for the moment when I need it again. Work is the only thing for which I have been able to develop a decent memory recall system, and it’s served me well. These days I think about the technology I’ve learned and how well it has served me, and what I would have missed if i went somewhere and became stagnant. And I feel sorry for those of my customers, who rankle at the challenge of learning new systems and processes, but once learned cling to them like lifesavers, unwilling, unable to adapt to the next challenge without suffering.

I’m the least resistant to change of anyone I know- in certain areas. In others, well, I like the old things and the old ways. Centerfire rifle cartridges that were old before my people lived on this continent. Stick built craftsman homes with double hung windows and sashweights. Women without tats who wear dresses. technology? Well, until the day comes when I can abandon it altogether, I want to be right on the sharp thin edge, and i am, right now- Most of the shit we do, doesn’t exist until I make it. And I like that just fine. I may be an old dog, but I’m still teaching the world a thing or two about tricks.