Originally Posted by Choro&Swing
(Post 1799092)
I’m laughing about this. You are right that lots of people here have opinions not backed up by much information. Oh well! It’s sort of like a democracy: if there are as many idiots on their side as there are on our side, the votes balance out, more or less, or at least don’t swing too far one way or the other.
For nearly my entire life, I’ve loved learning things and learning how to do things, and I’ve also loved sharing what I’ve learned. Despite that, I feel that I’ve learned more in the past couple years than in the rest of my life. Now I’m not strong or fit or fast enough to do some of the things I used to do, like construction projects. In a few years I’ll be dead—as will we all. It bothers me that all this knowledge will disappear, just as I’m finally learning something! I spent 43 years teaching at universities. I was learning constantly so I could enrich my lectures. It wasn’t enough, say, for me to teach a Shakespeare play. I had to learn the history of the time in which it was set. I had to learn what the music was like, and the food, and the art, and the clothing. I had to learn how the people in various social classes lived in that specific period. It was so much fun! I like to think some of the students enjoyed my lectures. Perhaps I was fooling myself.
When I got a job as a janitor in a hospital operating room as a high school dropout when I was seventeen, I grew interested in becoming an operating room technician and began reading textbooks about it. Six months later I was doing it full time. When I needed to know how to fix things and design and build things because I couldn’t usually afford to hire experts, I subscribed to professional building journals and read them cover to cover. I still do, decades later. I became interested in Bible stories and theology and ended up editing a large professional theological journal for ten years. I’ve designed and built or rebuilt several houses. I became interested in Swing music and learned to play it and sing it. I became interested in playing the mandolin and ended up writing a book about it. I became interested in Brazilian Choro music and just published a book about it. I LOVE doing these things! I love SHARING these things.
People ask a lot of questions here. If I don’t have an answer, it’s a lot of fun to do some research online and find an answer. It’s fulfilling to weigh various opinions and studies and figure out which are the strongest. I try to be accurate. I try not to just share “my two cents.”
I’ve noticed a number of people on here who are doing what I do. You know who they are. I like it that they often have information I don’t have. I learn from them, and maybe they learn a little from me. As hobbies go, this one is pretty satisfying.
But even when people post who don’t really have much to add, they enjoy it. Good for them! Their two cents, at the least, keeps them reading and learning.
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