While eating lunch with my colleagues today/yesterday, I came to the realization that my instinctive response to skill acquisition follows what I would do while playing an RPG. Somewhere along the way, we started talking about what our plans were for the future. A few of us had considered law school, but decided that the lifestyle (both during and after) wasn't something we envied. Other options like continuing school at the doctoral level were similarly held up as desirable, but unsuitably difficult paths. We concluded that we liked the idea of those things more than the reality. We didn't really engage in deep inquiry and reflection about why we considered those options in the first place, but one can imagine that the prestige, power, and/or wealth associated with those occupational options encouraged us to consider them.

As the conversation progressed, however, I realized that the mechanism at work within my mind was something a bit more bizarre. The conversation moved on to how some of them were considering obtaining a masters degree, how one of their significant others was training to be an EMT, how one of them was considering enrolling in the Police Academy.... Without fail, everytime someone mentioned some kind of training or schooling, something inside of me felt like I should go do that. As I came to realize that my attraction for additional learning had nothing to do with the desirability of the associated career path or a love of learning, I came to the sudden realization that I am a skill pack rat.

My academic advisors in college really looked down on the idea of double majoring. They reasoned that a person could not hold two jobs anyway, and that having multiple majors just stressed a student out while making them appear directionless or otherwise uncommitted/passionate about their field. In retrospect, I think that double-majoring would have been a better option for me than using the same time to get two degrees in the same field (because I am directionless career-wise). Repeating an undergraduate level of education seems like a waste after you are done with it, and not all graduate fields are open to you unless you have the appropriate undergrad experience. Anyways, my point is not that I should have double-majored, but that the same pack rat tendencies that used to make me keep all the fancy tags that came with any new clothing I purchased is threatening my ability to pursue a career.

As mentioned earlier, this is similar to how I play RPGs...I rarely use single-use items or discard old items until absolutely forced, and I try to make my characters super well rounded and multi-skilled. For most RPGs, this just means that I'm wasting time...because powering up in one area usually allows you to progress much faster (though sometimes they throw in a twist where specific enemies become difficult for unbalaced characters to overcome). In real life, this also means that I am wasting time....and in a more dramatic fashion, since the real me loses unused skills over time unlike video game characters. I read an article once about how back in the day people didn't go off trying to find their perfect career...just like they didn't go off trying to find the perfect significant other. I'm really not into going back to when everything was pre-arranged (though I can imagine me really flourishing in such a world), so I'm glad things are the way they are. Too bad all this searching isn't turning me into a DaVinci though. He was actually good at all the many things he dabbled in...I'm just good at doing the work without learning much.

On a less facetious note, I feel like despair is best characterized as an uncompromising desire for perfection. For this reason, the greatest hope often gleams from the ashes of depression. Only those who dared long for the greatest things suffer the weight of true futility, and only the mad or enlightened dare dream even still. How truly fantastic and utterly foolish those hopes must be.

Until the end of ages, persistent discontent will necessarily remain Christendom's crime. For those who long for Love and ache for heaven, no extravagance of this realm will satisfice. This life is a gift, and our heaviest burden.

As the heir to the "SoftStorm" section on my personal web page (back when it was popular to have personal web pages), my lj has always had a very clear focus/style. In contrast, I can't seem to settle on what I want to write on this blog. Over the years I've written topical entries, journals of my day, songs, rants, letters to unspecified people, but I never stick to anything. I think this is the number one reason why I don't blog here more often, I don't know what I am sitting down to write. I do want to write though, because I feel like a part of my brain rots away when I don't write.

The business school side of me tells me that what I write and how I write should depend on my audience. The business school side of me also believes that I should concentrate on networking and outsource writing blogs to save time for golf and drinking. The business school side of me doesn't really exist. I slept through business school.

As for what the sides of me that do exist say:

• The teacher side of me says to write something edifying and educational.
• The eeyore side of me says that no one will really care what I write anyway.
• The student side of me says that I still have so much to learn and that maybe I should write what I wonder about, because people are often much more eager to give advice than receive it.
• The intellectual side of me says I should use big words and write about ideas of great complexity or great significance.
• The romantic side of me says to write an epic love story
• The shamelessly cheap/thrifty side of me just wants to chime in to say that I now keep an eye out for pepsi bottle caps when I run, because they are approximately worth a quarter but they are much easier to find than quarters.