Category: post

Beatrix,

There are a lot of adults right now, especially those closest to you, telling you their stories about their path. How they did in high school, where they went to college (or didn’t), how they ended up doing what they do. What their major was and how it doesn’t even resemble what they actually do now (as it is for most college graduates).

I know this confuses, frustrates, and bores you to tears. I know both your Mom and (especially) I are the worst offenders of this.

I’m sorry. We can’t help ourselves.

You can mostly ignore all the details and tune out the stories. They won’t help you. That was our path. That was what worked for us. Where we are is a result of our choices (life is built by choices) to say yes or no to the opportunities placed before us. But those choices and opportunities were ours alone and unique to us. You will get your own.

But, don’t ignore the “why” behind we adults telling you this stuff. Some of it over and over again (because we’re old and repeat ourselves — likely a symptom of early onset dementia).

The “why” is this: There are many possible paths. Our path was our path paved with our opportunities and our choices. Your path is and always will be your path paved by your choices.

And, inside of all of these stories from all of these people are examples of how one small simple seemingly inconsequential choice or random chance encounter changed the trajectory of our entire lives.

When a friend asked me for a favor to help out a lady with her computer and I said yes and despite having a very bad case of the flu I showed up anyway and did the work and now, here you are on the edge of senior year the daughter of those two people brought together by a hard drive failure and a simple favor.

The point being that every “yes” matters and every “no” matters and that your path will be yours alone and your choices pave it and gosh you are already sick of reading this and “Dad, I get it already! Shut up!” but I only have about a year to tell you all of this and it does not seem like nearly enough time and your path is moving SO quickly now and seems out of control and I’m your parent damn-it I should be making sure you get all of the best things and go to the college you want and make sure your life is everything you want it to be but the world is changing and you are changing and it’s all out of control and happening so fast and…

I can’t. Your path is your path. Your choices guide you and only you.

You are too old for my shit or your Mom’s shit or anyone else’s shit. Time for us to shut up and let you do your own shit.

I had been working for four years as Front Desk Manager for a nationally franchised hotel chain when I saw the ad in the newspaper.

The headline was, Writer Needed.

I was a writer, for sure. I had been writing creatively for most of my life. My Mom sent me my first published work a few years back — it was on mimeograph paper from a school bulletin in 2nd grade.

That said, I was not a Writer. I had never really been a Writer. In other words, someone who does so professionally. For a job. For money.

My jobs until that point were delivering newspapers, bagging groceries, overnight stock work at a major chain, working in retail sales, working and managing video stores, and, of course, working front desk at a hotel. Hardly the qualifications for applying for a job as a Writer.

Did I let that stop me? No. Did I send in my resumé with a cover letter and, most importantly, a writing sample? Yes.

Did I get the job? Yes.

I got the job because no one ever said “No, you can’t do that.” The most important “no” I never heard was the voice in my head. I had decided I was a Writer. I had always wanted to be a Writer. Here was the universe sending me a sign — this was my chance — to become what I had long believed I was; a Writer.

And, that’s how I started my career as a Technical Consultant.

“What?”, you ask.

You see, the writing job was at a build-to order computer manufacturer, ZEOS International. They needed someone to join their small customer service letter writing team. You see, this was in the early days of the home PC revolution. Email, as we know it now, wasn’t really a thing. If someone had something they wanted to express more seriously than a phone call, they wrote a letter. The team I was going to be on were the ones who wrote the replies.

A couple of years after I got the job, the Tech Support managers came to me. They were looking to build an automated tech support system and needed someone to write the scripts. They had heard that I was a bit of a geek in writer’s clothing, had my own BTO PC at home that I tinkered with, so would be a good fit for the project.

Had I ever worked in tech support or done troubleshooting of any kind? Did I consider myself a geek? No.

Did I take the project on? Yes.

By doing so, not only did I do the job at hand but, though my research and conversations with the tech support staff — The Knowers of Such Things — I became a Knower too.

After the project was completed and the Tech Support Manager asked if I wanted a job in that department instead of Customer Service and offered me a higher tier position at nearly double the hourly pay, I said “yes”.

After a couple of years of that position I intuited there was a real need in the market for someone who could just go to people’s homes to troubleshoot and fix things and that it would be easier, faster, and frankly worth the cost to the user to have such a service, I decided I wanted to be a Technical Consultant and should begin learning everything I needed to know to do that well.

Did I have any idea what that looked like? Did I know what skills I would need to hone? Were there any examples to follow at the time? No.

Did I start down that path anyway? Yes.

Tier 2 PC Tech Support at ZEOS to Tech Support for a printer manufacturer to Tech Support for a networking company to QA for a Software Company to being an Independent Technical Consultant.

I said Yes.

So, what is the point of all of this. The point (and the one I’m trying to impart to my Daughter) is that I’ve been able to do what I’ve done in my life by saying Yes to the opportunities that intrigued and presented themselves to me. I did not dwell on my own shortcomings or limitations. Most importantly, I did not tell myself “no”. My policy was “yes”. Sure, some of the opportunities were luck. But luck often happens to those always ready to accept it.

When your opportunities come, say yes. Make it your personal policy.

Education is free, learning is expensive | Seth’s Blog

Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.

This is part of the discussion’s we’re having right now in our household around college.

Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I especially loved non-fiction. I loved learning. It didn’t matter the subject. Give me a set of encyclopedias for one birthday and I’d have read through everything that caught my eye by the next. Luckily, my Mother and Grandmother — the two women who raised me — gave me plenty of access to books both at home and at libraries (both public and college). One was a full time college student, the other a university professor with a doctorate.

My educational journey was chaotic. I went to seven different elementary schools and three different high schools. I therefore encountered an equal number of different pedagogies, educational methods, and systems. Montessori, Core, Open, etc. Public, private, and parochial.

By the time I got to the final years of high school, I really didn’t know how to be a student anymore — at least not one in any top down educational setting. I felt not only did I know way more than any of my class mates but most of my teachers as well. Most of what was in the text books I’d read and learned in my own childhood independent study. I was kind of… done. Done with the idea of school at least.

Yet, college was expected. Five generations of my family had advanced college degrees. I was expected to be part of the sixth. So, out of that obligation and expectation, I went to Dillard University — the school where those five generations had done their undergraduate work. Where my Grandmother even sat on the Board of Trusties at that time. I didn’t even have to apply… I just got an acceptance in the mail and orientation packet shortly before arrival.

I lasted a year. Did not attend many classes. New Orleans is a very easy place to get lost in. I got lost and I didn’t go back.

All of this is to say that, despite poor grades in High School (turns out, if you don’t attend classes or do homework that is the result) and only one abysmal year in college (same), none of it mattered for my long term success. Here’s why (and the thing I’ve told Beatrix and we should be discussing more with kids these days).

No one cares.

That’s right. The only people that care about your high school grades and activities are college admission departments. They are the only one’s that care about if you went to class or not and what clubs and teams you are on. Your GPA only really matters to them. Once you actually get into college, no one will care about where you went to high school, what you did there, or how well you did it. No one will ever ask again.

And, here’s another sad truth. Once you leave college and get your first job, no one will care where you went, what your grades were, or even if you graduated at all. Put a college down on your resumé. Pick any one you like. No one will question it or bother to check. No one will really care. It’s kind of mind-blowing but true.

On my resumé under Education, I simply put “Dillard University”. Not one person or employer has ever questioned if I graduated, what my major was, what my grades were, or if I was accepted and attended more than a handful of classes before I decided my best education was found off campus. They only care if I know how to do the job or can be easily and quickly trained in on how to do so.

Four years into my IT career I was managing the people getting hired who had Computer Science Degrees. I was their boss. They had spent four years learning about the work. I had spent four years doing it.

The world cares about what you know. Not where you know it from.

And, that’s a hard truth to swallow. All of the time and in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars a person pours into these institutions only to have it ultimately be met with indifference. What’s the point?

Your experience — education, jobs, teams, activities, path — shows the world that you are a Knower of Things™. Not just of any specific thing… but that too. A Knower of many things and someone who wants to know things by whatever means they can access. That the Knowing is a life long quest to you and that you want be a part of this school/college/job/position/membership/team to be a Knower of More Things. Having gone to school and then to college and then to work and all the things you did there and beyond show each person along the way that you’re one of the Knowers — regardless of where you know it from. You want to be with The Knowers, where The Knowers are, doing the Knowing.

And this is my main wish for Beatrix. That she is and continues to be a Knower of Things™ and chooses whatever path is best for her to be a Knower of More Things. Because there are OH SO MANY things to know and the barriers to knowing them become more porous by the day. Where she learns them and how she learns them matters less than Knowing.

I just want to point a few things out…

• The irony should not be lost on the fact that it sounds exactly like the other side did with very similar theories exactly four years ago. All you are doing is proving such ideas and tactics acceptable and furthering the distrust that leads societies to crumble.
• Kamala Harris conceded. Period. The moment this happened it does not matter how or why. Donny, even in that face of indisputable loss, never did.
• Let’s just game this out… Let’s say you’re right and evidence is found that without any shadow of a doubt the machines were rigged and the election was stolen and Harris won and every court in the land rules that’s the case… Then what? Do you honestly think the current president will just give up and walk away? How did that work last time? Do you think his supporters will be there at the capitol steps again? Like, seriously. What is the purpose and the point? How will this play out? Think this through.
• There is overwhelming evidence that not only will nothing come of it but that he will do anything including using the military to ensure it. Game out all plausible scenarios and you’ll find yourself trapped with nothing more than your righteousness to cling to.

Note: That’s it for now. I may have some other points to make later so consider this an ongoing list.

My shirt today (courtesy of my wife) while they were cleaning up the mess on my truck.

What we believe in.

Most see this phrase and think of campsites. They think of nature. It’s a good rule to follow there for sure.

I choose to think that it can apply to more.

Did I leave my house better than when I found it this morning?

Did I leave my kids more loved, more cared for, more seen? What about my wife? My friends?

Did I leave my work in a better position or my task list a bit more manageable?

There is nothing in our lives that could not benefit from the spirit of this motto.

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while yet I’ve not found a “long form essay” way to spell it out so I’ll put my brief and disjointed thoughts here as a place holder and to spur further discussion…

• Culture change is very slow. An event or policy or law may be a trigger — a starting point — but the actual change is a process that often takes generations.

• We often like to believe that an action or a law comes as a result of a societal change. That somehow passing a law makes everything suddenly better. When, in fact, the law is simply a step that is generally near the start of the journey. A road that will take many generations to walk. Also, that road is not a straight line. That journey is a wave. It is often two steps forward and one step back or worse — the converse of that.

• Racism didn’t end with Civil Rights Act of 1964. We are now 3-4 generations past that time and still fighting many of the same fights with things often seemingly getting worse, not better.

• Segregation did not end when Ruby Bridges crossed the threshold of that school. Even with laws in place, we largely in American culture and society still segregate ourselves willingly despite it.

• All culture change is performative… It is all “fake it until you make it”. I would make the argument that most laws and policies are in place to force the faking.

• So, it should be no surprise when a company that was doing DEI way before it was cool can suddenly turn on a dime and decades of DEI policies and practices suddenly disappear or go in reverse. They were faking it all along and, you know what? That’s…

• Well… How it works. That’s how culture change happens. It happens by faking it until it just becomes the thing we do and it has been so long that people have largely forgotten that it wasn’t always this way or look at the way it was as completely abhorrent to who we are as a society and culture now.

Like I said, many of these thoughts are still forming into a more logical “Rhone Unified Theory of Culture Change and Societal Progression” but I’ll leave these here for now and welcome any feedback or further discussion.

Update:

I received a wonderful and important comment on these ideas from someone who wishes to remain anonymous but has allowed me to include it here:.

imo the missing idea here is that people create social change. It does not happen simply because a law was passed, or even that some people decided to fake it for a while. Social change is about the dominant culture changing, and culture only changes because people help other people change their beliefs or actions (or they are replaced in the culture by others). It’s people changing others that creates the change:

There are two types of activists: One who believes their side is right, and therefore banishes anyone who doesn’t yet agree. And one who believes their side is right, and therefore tries to convince anyone who doesn’t yet agree. I’ve lived in both camps. The latter is tougher, but it’s the one that fosters social change.

Of course, it’s never all of the culture that changes. Just the dominant part, the right now part, which is why that can shift over time. You can pass laws or change policies but not complete the necessary social change, and—bam—things can revert in a hurry in response. Faking it isn’t enough; if you’re not changing others (or keeping them changed), then the “other side” can do the work of changing others, and unwind the change they want.

I recently drafted the following thoughts to share with the Academic Dean of my daughter’s school. These were driven from a thread I recently started around these ideas on Micro.blog. I wanted to post them here for archives sake also/and to share them with my broader audience for further thinking and discussion.

A few days ago, I didn’t know the right settings for cooking white beans in my Instant Pot. So, I Googled it. The top result was Google’s AI telling me exactly what I needed to know. I did not need to click further. I now know the right method going forward.

Did I use AI for the answer? Did I learn?

Yes.

The point being that AI is everywhere now. If I search for something on Google the top result is increasingly often Google’s AI driven answer with the information I need. If I type in my word processor or email program and it makes word suggestions or offers sentence completion, AI is driving that. In fact, everything students and teachers write or post online — including everything in Google Classroom — is being used to train the very LLMs that the AI is using to provide the answers.

The truth is, AI is a tool. A tool that will very soon (1-3 years maximum in my guessing) be everywhere and in everything and the answers/solutions it will produce will be so accurate it will be indistinguishable from actual learning and, in fact, teaching.

AI is quickly becoming the first and final step of learning something new on the internet. My Instant Pot story is an example of this. I did not ask for AI but it was the first answer presented, had the right answer, and I learned from it. So, I “used AI” for the result.

Therefore, if a student uses AI to learn a better method for doing stoichiometry for Chemistry class because the one being taught is not making sense or if they learn the same thing from their learning coach, what’s the difference? Especially if they can now use that method going forward to get the right results? And if the student has learned something, what makes either instruction superior to the other? Now, what if the learning coach learned that new method from AI?

These are the sorts of things, of many, I believe schools of all levels will need to think about and should be having conversations about right now.

The bottom line is that without a specific AI policy that addresses what is appropriate and not appropriate use, I would argue that the school has neither the standards, understanding, or clarity about it to make any objective accusations about when/how/why/how much it was used. And if the school does not have a clear, communicable, policy regarding this, it can’t possibly expect the students to know the difference between proper use of a tool to learn versus intellectual dishonesty.

Especially without proper policy built from thinking about what AI is, the many ways it might manifest, how one might use it for valid reasons and learning, or even how one may not even realize they are using it at all (the typing an email example).

With a lack of clear specific AI policy, teachers are left without any objective way to test or defend against its use and this leads to a desire to use subjective suspicion as a basis for accusation.

If the school is going to remain all-in with using Google Classroom, then it must at least acknowledge the potential conflict of interest this might reveal; i.e. the students and teachers themselves are likely training the very LLM’s Google is using for their AI programming and results using the very coursework we are asking the students to do. What then happens when the AI result is something another student wrote or even the student themselves using the AI wrote previously? Is plagiarizing yourself possible? I suspect we’re about to find out.

I suspect within the next 2-3 years, any school policy broadly and unilaterally against AI — or as only mention in a broad cheating policy – will seem silly as it will be nearly ubiquitous, everywhere, and impossible to truly avoid using. It’ll be like being broadly against eyeglasses. The smart schools will realize this now and start to draft policy around how to use it ethically as a tool for learning more so than simply tying to ban its use with no clear guidance.

For what it’s worth, I remember similar arguments about pocket calculators when I was in grade school in the 1970s. I still remember a section in a mathematics class where we used a calculator to get the result but — with a creative twist – the result requested was the word the result numbers appeared to spell when you turned the calculator upside down. A very creative way to incorporate new technology seen as a potential threat! The more things change…

To summarize, AI is here. It is everywhere. It’s going to only be more so. It is being used right now to even write this. We can’t avoid it. We have to learn how to live with it and use it properly or go back to pencils and blue books, proctored exams, and lean more heavily into live (unassisted) discussion and presentation.

Thinking recently about how places — houses, buildings, land — are not just things to me. They are talismans and time machines. When I walk on the grounds of Handy Heights, for instance, not only am I flooded with my own memories of times spent there when young, I also can vividly imagine my ancestors walking in the very same steps, looking at very similar views. When we are at my wife’s family’s cabin, I can help but feel the hands of her great grandfather touching the same logs on the original cabin or her grandmother sleeping in the same Murphy bunk our daughter now calls her own.

I sometimes look at the 1886 piano in the corner of our living room, built the same year as the house, and see the music teacher daughter of the woman who built it giving piano lessons to a younger student. The same golden hour light streaming alighting the keys.

And when these places are lost, due to catastrophe, sale, or otherwise, more than just the structures and their contents are gone. In a significant way, those direct tangible connections to the past are as well.

Perhaps I have an overly active method of loci.

A place very dear to our family was recently lost to wildfires. The land is still there. Perhaps it will be rebuilt and nothing has burned our memories but I can’t touch the places I once touched there again. I can’t marvel at the hand built structures of the woman who founded the place. How it was is only a memory now. A certain tangibility gone for good.

On the subject of food, my most recent food obsession is the humble Jambon Beurre — the unofficial national sandwich of France (more than three million jambon-beurre sandwiches are sold in France each day).

So simple. Only three ingredients. But, in discussing this with my Dad today another side thought occurred to me… Because of its simplicity the quality of each ingredient matters that much more. And, I believe this to be a general rule of thumb. The simpler the dish, the more important the quality of the ingredients — the mediocre simply has no where to hide!

You can use canned peas in a casserole and folks will likely never notice. Use them for mushy peas and they’ll likely be terrible.

So, with the jambon beurre I’m careful to use good ham (usually a lightly smoked prosciutto actually), a generous slather of Président butter and a fresh baguette.

I’ve tried the cheap quality alternatives to all three and, well, let’s just say it is not why I keep making them.

This idea came up in conversation with my dad this morning (credit mostly to him):

If you use a microwave until it dies, no problem. You can buy a new one.

You can drive a car until the wheels are practically falling off. Then replace it with a new one.

You only have one body. It can’t be replaced.

Just like the car or the microwave, how well you maintain them and carefully you use them will have an effect on how long they last.

But your body, once it’s done, it’s done.

So, it’s even more important to use and maintain it as well as you can, for as long as you can. Because it’s irreplaceable.

So, put the best fuel (food) in it you can. Make sure that fuel is clean and high-quality (organic, sustainable, balanced, chemical free, ingredients you can trust, etc.). Keep your regularly scheduled maintenance visits (doctors, dentist, etc.). Run it regularly at both cruising and highway speeds (regular walking and exercise). Give it regular washings and keep it looking good (clean cars run better and last longer, so do bodies). These things may cost you more, but that’s because they are better and better for you.

I like this way of thinking about it and making choices for what I do and consume based on this line of thought.

Pairs well with a conversation I had with a friend many years ago, explaining why the added expense often kept me from shopping at the wonderful natural food co-op that’s just a block and a half away as often as I should. He turned to me and said, “Patrick, it’s an investment in your health”.

All these years later, these words ring in my head whoever I shop there.