(no subject)

[which_chick]

Confession time: I do not have a lifelong love of learning.



I fucking hate learning, though mental stuff (like maths and literary theory and whatnot) is tons easier for me than physical stuff (like riding a horse or splitting wood or knitting two-handed colorwork). It's a lot of work to learn things and I'm fundamentally lazy. I am slow and awkward and clumsy when I'm learning new things where usually the teacher makes it look smooth and easy. I really hate how damn crappy and useless I look compared to them. Most irritating, my body makes mistakes long after my brain knows NOT to do that. (Way to go, body. I *know* that the only thing that improves muscle memory is practice doing it right and that this just takes time and lots of it. However, the intellectual awareness that muscle memory takes a lot longer to *fix* than one's concept of how-to-do-things does not help me feel better about the body mistake problem.)

The flat truth is that I don't LIKE learning new skills, particularly body-based ones. It's frustrating as hell and a lot of work and there is a huge ramp-up period where I feel awkward and incompetent. (I am not a kinesthetically gifted person.) Anyway, learning physical skills is a hell of a lot like work for me. Not sure how I'm supposed to love that, yet teachers and administrators and all kinds of liberal arts folk talk about a lifelong love of learning which, besides being alliterative, is supposed to be the holy grail of educators everywhere. Color me not getting it. Who loves learning? Really, honestly, is there anyone who loves that?

What I have a lifelong love of is having learned. Knowing stuff, that's great. I really like knowing stuff. I really like being able to do things. I adore looking like I know what I'm doing and I (far too often) get off on being able to do things better than other people. I like being the person who makes it look easy and graceful and competent... and sometimes I like it enough to work through the awkward and incompetent part of the learning curve until I get to the easy/graceful/competent part.

Comments

[cousin-sue.livejournal.com]

Well, it's easier for me to learn physical stuff, but then you hit that wall where the easy becomes actual work...

But yes, I do love being able to do the competent part. *That* is the pleasure of learning!

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hate learning too. For the same reason - it makes me feel stupid. I want to be able to do new and interesting things immediately and it should not require long periods of me looking like a moron.

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure they didn't mean physical stuff, elsewise the liberal arts schools would be turning out a lot more brickmasons and plumbers than they have in recent years.

It's OK. Henry Adams was a self-absorbed prat (http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/hadams/ha_home.html).

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

To me it always meant insatiable curiosity. Left to my own devices, I tend to interpret the phrase as pertaining to "learning about" rather than "learning how to", though.

I don't learn nearly as many new physical skills as you do.

[wootsauce.livejournal.com]

The getting going is hard. It took me a while to realize that that's why I thought I wasn't good at anything other than drawing-- I have been drawing so long, I can't remember the slow, frustrating and awkward stage that I'm currently going through in, say, ceramics. Man, that requires some spatial skills I just don't have.

[cousinsue.livejournal.com]

Hey, friend me! Please?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Done.

[cousinsue.livejournal.com]

yay!