(Background: first posted in my Parabolica blog. No other set-up needed.)
Benjamin Franklin has always been my favorite Founding Father. In addition to being the first Secretary of State, the face of our fledgling nation to the rest of the world, he was a writer and philosopher, most notably "Poor Richard's Almanac" (still great reading), a scientist and relentless tinkerer, with optics, keys and kites, and constant broad and utterly pragmatic force in the shaping of this country. The voice anyone would want in a room whether forming a radical new government or discussing how it would empower the citizen in his daily life.
My Grandmother had a backhanded compliment she would use toward my father, "Jack of all trades, master of none" which was wonderfully appropriate for him. I can never remember a repairman of any kind coming to our home. He took care of the plumbing, electrical, appliance and automotive repair in our home with at least competency but, as I would learn later, never mastery. This certainly has a place in this world: when you're stuck on the side of the road, because your car stopped, being the greatest plumber in the world is little consolation.
Being proximate to him, I share his appreciation for a broad knowledge base, just for the utility of it, but equally important in that appreciation is the willingness to listen and keep learning from people you meet that have a more specialized expertise in a particular discipline. What is, perhaps, most important is a humility that comes with the realization, as John Wayne said, "A man's got to know his limitations" but coupled with a stubbornness to keep trying.
And I do love to be contrary.
The last trade I've learned was welding and I love to weld with the old, slow oxygen-acetylene torch. Electric arc welding is the state of the art, being faster and far stronger, but oxy welds are just so beautiful when executed perfectly. I'm just saying, you don't see electric welds on sculpture.
The last intellectual undertaking has being learning more about economics, business and monetary concerns. What started it was channel-surfing and coming across CNBC and Bloomberg news. As I watched them for the first time, I realized I had no idea what they were talking about and that embarrassed me, quite frankly. I had micro and macro economics courses in college when I was a computer science/business major (didn't last) but none of those courses went into the real-world, nuts and bolts, pragmatic view of capitalism that these people dealt in. This was raw, unspun knowledge that I instinctively craved and I was hooked immediately.
After 2 years of watching daily, I have achieved, what I would call, viewing competency in that I'm no longer sitting at the commercial break trying to understand what I just saw, but am understanding in real-time, what is expressed. I'm a work in progress...
What prompted this, as it turned out, rather long article was today's "Meet the Press" which featured CNBC, and, more importantly, TVA blog, regular Erin Burnett. Until today, it was somewhat of a mystery to me why, with the plethora of beautiful and intelligent women on CNBC, I was so taken by her. To paraphrase St. Augustine, I understand my own actions least of all, but I think I get it, now.
The subject before the panel was the midterm elections, not exactly her bailiwick, and I wondered how she would fare out of her element. If you want to judge for yourself click here. While "Meet the Press" was on, it suddenly clicked in my head why I have such an affinity for Erin's take on the world: it's an interdisciplinary approach to the world, not a specialized one. She was perfectly at home discussing politics with people who only discuss politics and made, what I thought, the most compelling point of the discussion: that the President needs to go back to being the visionary that he was during the campaign because she saw that was what made him the leader of the nation.
And, of course, she's right.
The President needs to quit trying to be the greatest plumber in the world when we're broken down on the side of the road and just want to get home.
Or maybe he doesn't think Ben Franklin was much of a leader.
*
(It has occured to me that the proper term should be "interdisciple" but it just sounds too religious to me.)
Benjamin Franklin has always been my favorite Founding Father. In addition to being the first Secretary of State, the face of our fledgling nation to the rest of the world, he was a writer and philosopher, most notably "Poor Richard's Almanac" (still great reading), a scientist and relentless tinkerer, with optics, keys and kites, and constant broad and utterly pragmatic force in the shaping of this country. The voice anyone would want in a room whether forming a radical new government or discussing how it would empower the citizen in his daily life.
My Grandmother had a backhanded compliment she would use toward my father, "Jack of all trades, master of none" which was wonderfully appropriate for him. I can never remember a repairman of any kind coming to our home. He took care of the plumbing, electrical, appliance and automotive repair in our home with at least competency but, as I would learn later, never mastery. This certainly has a place in this world: when you're stuck on the side of the road, because your car stopped, being the greatest plumber in the world is little consolation.
Being proximate to him, I share his appreciation for a broad knowledge base, just for the utility of it, but equally important in that appreciation is the willingness to listen and keep learning from people you meet that have a more specialized expertise in a particular discipline. What is, perhaps, most important is a humility that comes with the realization, as John Wayne said, "A man's got to know his limitations" but coupled with a stubbornness to keep trying.
And I do love to be contrary.
The last trade I've learned was welding and I love to weld with the old, slow oxygen-acetylene torch. Electric arc welding is the state of the art, being faster and far stronger, but oxy welds are just so beautiful when executed perfectly. I'm just saying, you don't see electric welds on sculpture.
The last intellectual undertaking has being learning more about economics, business and monetary concerns. What started it was channel-surfing and coming across CNBC and Bloomberg news. As I watched them for the first time, I realized I had no idea what they were talking about and that embarrassed me, quite frankly. I had micro and macro economics courses in college when I was a computer science/business major (didn't last) but none of those courses went into the real-world, nuts and bolts, pragmatic view of capitalism that these people dealt in. This was raw, unspun knowledge that I instinctively craved and I was hooked immediately.
After 2 years of watching daily, I have achieved, what I would call, viewing competency in that I'm no longer sitting at the commercial break trying to understand what I just saw, but am understanding in real-time, what is expressed. I'm a work in progress...
What prompted this, as it turned out, rather long article was today's "Meet the Press" which featured CNBC, and, more importantly, TVA blog, regular Erin Burnett. Until today, it was somewhat of a mystery to me why, with the plethora of beautiful and intelligent women on CNBC, I was so taken by her. To paraphrase St. Augustine, I understand my own actions least of all, but I think I get it, now.
The subject before the panel was the midterm elections, not exactly her bailiwick, and I wondered how she would fare out of her element. If you want to judge for yourself click here. While "Meet the Press" was on, it suddenly clicked in my head why I have such an affinity for Erin's take on the world: it's an interdisciplinary approach to the world, not a specialized one. She was perfectly at home discussing politics with people who only discuss politics and made, what I thought, the most compelling point of the discussion: that the President needs to go back to being the visionary that he was during the campaign because she saw that was what made him the leader of the nation.
And, of course, she's right.
The President needs to quit trying to be the greatest plumber in the world when we're broken down on the side of the road and just want to get home.
Or maybe he doesn't think Ben Franklin was much of a leader.
*
(It has occured to me that the proper term should be "interdisciple" but it just sounds too religious to me.)
