LIFETIME LEARNING MEANS HOMEWORK FOREVER?

Lifetime learning means not quitting until you figure things out.

It also means knowing what you don’t know and when to call an expert.

This is when it gets dicey.

You know what you don’t know, but still wonder if the experts know more.

These are the lessons of when to listen and learn.

Lifetime learning comes into play when you pop the hood on a hybrid car to jump start a dead battery.

Have you looked in there? Where’s the battery?

The sharp car owner breaks out the manual and learns how to hook up the cables.

One hooks up on one side of the engine, one hooks up on the other side.

Neither side looks like a battery.

The fan of lifetime learning sees a chance to disable two cars, one with a dead battery, one with a blown up engine?

Could that even happen? Before finding out, buy a portable jumper and avoid the whole mess.

Does this sound like bailing on a problem, taking the easy way out? Or protecting an investment?

At the end of the day everyone got home safe and sound in running cars.

My lifetime learning advice: If you meet a group for an event, stick together until you know everyone is road ready, then take off.

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Baby boomers take up lifetime learning to show they’re not dead.

Our grandparents didn’t take to it because they knew everything worth knowing.

Besides that, they were the Great Depression / WWII generation.

Our parents had a high bar to reach.

My Dad reached it and raised it even higher after fighting with the Marine Corps in the Korean War, then college.

Now it’s us boomers, and our kids are too smart.

Remember the early saying with a malfunctioning computer?

“You need a twelve year old to fix it.”

Then twelve turned into thirty and we still call them for help.

If you don’t, you should.

Call the kids and ask for help even if you don’t need help. Call to see if their knowledge matches yours.

If it doesn’t match, you’re the smart one. Go ahead an explain where they went wrong, Dad.

They’ll appreciate it after you’re gone. Not gone gone, just gone home with your smart answer.

Homework Forever, And Then Some

If you need a challenge, and who doesn’t, try this:

Start playing a guitar.

After you learn to play, “My Dog Has Fleas,” focus on the problems.

Too many strings? Maybe you’re a bass player.

Too many strings and frets? Try a ukulele.

But for now, stick with guitar.

Like the alphabet with twenty-six letters, music has these notes:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

It sounds easy until you add the sharps and flats and go up and down the fretboard.

But save that all for later.

All you need to know is the lowest string is an open E string. Next to it is an open A string.

Pluck the E string and hit the A with your left pointer finger after pushing down on the second fret, then your ring finger pushing down on the fourth fret of the A.

Do it together and congratulations, you’re a blues man.

Sing along:

“Got up this morning, played my guitar,

Boomerpdx made it easy, I’m gonna be a star.”

Yes you will, if only in your room.

The main point is a guitar is contagious and once you learn one thing it leads to another.

Lifetime learning makes this sort of homework very enjoyable.

You can build on it, share it, and improve beyond your wildest expectations on a guitar beyond your abilities.

And isn’t that all we want, isn’t improvement enough?

You don ‘t have to be great to feel the buzz, just better than you used to be.

The Practice Of Lifetime Learning

Call it continuing education. I live in a house committed to continuing education with my wife.

For her it’s a professional necessity; for me it’s fending off the notion I might be an idiot.

Writing a blog helps in that area, so does playing a guitar.

Ideas and music sounds nice, and they are.

It’s nice to have a buffer against the cold world.

Instead of adding ice cubes to the struggle to stay warm, heat things up with hope and love.

This is much easier to do when you have certain people in your life, people who believe in the power of hope and love.

I believe.

Others don’t always come around right away, so why not teach them what it’s about.

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What life is about is repetition. It’s finding what works and doing it better.

Life is about muscle memory.

Some people think of repetition is getting into a rut. It’s not if you have the right attitude.

Find something new in the familiar.

Sure, everything’s been done, but not by you.

Bring an original idea to the familiar and make it new.

Writing a blog isn’t for everyone, but writing a comment is.

(Hint, hint. Leave a comment.)

Playing a guitar is hard at first. Your hand cramps, your fingertips get sore, then you find your strength.

That might mean playing a piano with eighty-eight keys. Stick with the guitar.

Once you improve a little you can start looking for ‘Your Sound.’

In writing it’s call finding ‘Your Voice.’

Keep looking even if you think you find it.

How many authors found their voice, didn’t like it, and would rather quit than utter another senseless sentence from a fake character’s mouth?

Could someone explain J.D. Salinger?

“J.D. Salinger spent 10 years writing The Catcher in the Rye and the rest of his life regretting it,” according to a new book about one of America’s best-known and most revered writers.

We know what happened to Kurt Cobain. He foreshadowed his future when he said he didn’t want to sing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ when he’s sixty.

Cobain also struggled with obtaining a mainstream audience, in that he suddenly saw the types of people who beat him up in high school coming to see Nirvana live. He eventually refused to play the song live, adding, “I literally want to throw my guitar down and walk away. I can’t pretend to have a good time playing it.”

Lifetime Learning From A Rolling Stone

Then there’s Mick Jagger singing ‘Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ when he’s eighty.

Some people are wired for the long haul.

Make the right choices today and you might rewire yourself for the long haul, too.

What are the benefits of the long haul life?

Seeing the sweet faces of people you love sharing their lives with each other.

Where’s my Kleenex.

This aspiring, guitar playing, long hauler needs a hankie just thinking of kids and wives and nieces and nephews and dogs.

Don’t forget the dogs.