This has a good point at the end.

[pseydtonne]

I was rash to call Debian Linux "bureaucratic". It's like calling a Zen guru a pencil-pusher just because the guru doesn't answer your question automatically.

I'm reading the copious documentation. The secrets are there. However, skipping from link to link is not providing answers. Only reading the installation documentation in order will I find all the information I need. I will save myself time when I invest enough time in this reading.

I couldn't get the time shift I needed to take the CS course at Tufts. Therefore, I've decided to get the laptop working anyway. I want to be able to write code while sitting on the futon. I want to have the books on my left, the laptop on my lap, and vinyl on the stereo. I spend too much of my day at a desk. If I'm going to fall into programming and thus let what I already know emerge, I need to get comfy.

So I'll read the Debian documentation. Then I'll copy the files I need. Then I will install Debian via the Net install. Then I'll realize I'm simply avoiding learning about Perl or C or sysadmin stuff because it's been so long since I disciplined myself. Then I'll write revelations about my inner psyche but I won't read them. Then other people will have to tell me the amazing insights I had. Then I'll ask y'all where you learned that. Then you'll tell me you read them here. Then I'll say something pithy and witty but I'll forget that too. Then I'll fail to make any intimate emotional bonds with people because I'll feel like I have too many billions of other loose ends so why create more.

Or something.

I'm sorry I don't write anyone. I can't sit down and write an email. It's simple when I actually sit down and write. It's difficult when I think about writing. My brain is such an amazing tool that I can watch it spin in neutral for days on end.

I've gotten fabulous at making excuses. I can spin lots of them. That doesn't mean I should.

Okay, this got depresso wicked fast. Then again, at least it wasn't all geeking. I feel like I failed when I didn't go to graduate school. I did so many other things that i never would have thought to try if I'd stayed in academia. I think a lot of it is that I want a guru but I keep finding myself being the guru. I want to follow but I wind up leading. Once I enjoy leading, I fuck up.

Maggie's good for me this way. She knows things about animals. To her, all of her animal handling knowledge is common sense; to me, it's radical fundamentalism. It blows my mind when she sees an animal and tunes in to it immediately. I look at a new animal and say, "have you thought about high-speed Internet service?" She leads me. I make decisions, but they're based on the inspiration of a person that really knows what she wants.

I suppose I should marry her.

And something.


-scared to sleep in case I forget why I thought of this, Dante

Comments

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

I feel like I failed when I didn't go to graduate school.

You really need to get over this, because this is the single biggest psychological block to your creativity. Grad school is itself a confession of failure, of a failure to recognize that there is a life beyond the prolonged adolescence of the academic setting. If you want proof of that, just read the LJs of all the people on my "Friends" list who are in grad school. Then contrast them to the LJs of the people on my "Friends" list who have actually done something with themselves.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

dunno. From grad school, I've watched all of my friends burst out into the "real" world, flounder, fall back, surge on, flounder, end up unemployed, move around, etc., etc. I don't know that my experience, or average income, has really been all that different, and in the meantime I've been earning an advanced degree.

Of course, an advanced degree in a field that while it seemed crucial and lucrative when I started now seems like a landmine of startups and corrupt financial backers, but whatever.

TMH

[epanastatis.livejournal.com]

The problem is that we're talking about two different things. You're talking about graduate study that serves as a career credential in a field where such credentials are necessary. Another example of such would be my wife, the librarian, and her necessary MLS. That's the kind of grad school you enter when you have a clear idea of what it is you want to do, and are mature enough to take the necessary steps to do it. pseydtonne's inferiority complex is revolving around the academic wankery represented by going straight into a graduate degree program in an abstruse, jobless field right after getting one's Bachelors. And I keep telling him, from experience, that it's far from what he cracks it up to be.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

hi, umm, you don't know me (though pseydtonne does). but i survived graduate school, and i think you could use a teaspoonful or two of perspective on it.

personally, i think "grad school as trade school" is only one metric. i currently hold one job with some minor relevance to my degree, and another one with none. but the doctorate and the experience have had a number of nice features for me:

. i got stamped with "faculty" at one of my jobs. this means better health insurance, retirement bennies, and similar groovy crapola. also it makes my mom really proud :)

. i occasionally do research (not related to my jobs) and having the doctorate (and the faculty affiliation) helps a bundle in getting stuff published and/or taken seriously.

. i know lots and lots and LOTS about something i think is really interesting. this is fun for me and occasionally helpful to friends of mine who are themselves involved in research (one of the things i learned a lot about was experimental design :) or interested in my field (neuroscience).

i didn't go to grad school right after my undergrad, and i'm not sure whether my field qualifies as "abstruse and jobless", and i don't think that pseydtonne is necessarily missing out on anything important to him by not having a graduate degree. but for me, well, getting the doctorate was interesting, and having it has been quite enjoyable.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm just happy that he's found useful employment, degree or no, and that he's mostly having fun, advanced degree or no. (Does he ever read the comments field of his LJ?) This is, say, unlike most of my friends, even the ones with Master's (though not so much the PhDs, unless you count Kevin, who hasn't looked for very long. Plus, if he gets a steady job the universe may collapse or something).

And the last comment thing there, yeah, well...give it time. Think to fullness. Then act on your impulse. ;-) And y'know, I suspect she reads your LJ, so you might want to talk with her, too...

TMH

[chaggalagirl.livejournal.com]

>(Does he ever read the comments field of his LJ?)

yes. in fact he's currently mulling over things to say. :) (ya know, just fyi)

Yeah, I read 'em.

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

Just like my protective munkee said.

By the way, epana and meta, you two know each other in case you didn't recognize each other. I know epana is sensitive about compromises in identity, but meta will know epana as my senior-year roomie. epana will know meta because meta mentioned Jersey Kevin, a prime target of our old times.

I suppose I left y'all in a tizzy, which wasn't fair of me. I'm not in an angsty fudge sundae about not being six figures in debt. I'm glad now that I didn't just study more and more history and only become a professor. I would still prefer to learn some computer science formally.

Perhaps that's a silly desire on my part. I prefer the dialogue-based method of learning, which may not be part of CS departments at all. I may be better of learning assembly or data structures on my own. I learned enough about Intel-based computer hardware on my own to build and maintain anything thrown at me.

I still have no idea what I'm really doing. If that's endemic to the modem human condition, then I may be all set. The eternal cycle of desire, purchase, debt, regret, payment and new desire has done more for my productivity than the habit of writing papers the day they're due.

What do I want? That's a moving target anyway. Right now I want that old NEC laptop to run Debian. Then I want this PowerBook 1400cs to work with a PCMCIA NIC so that I can give it to my mom. Then I want to find a spare ATX case to shove that dual-CPU motherboard into so that I can test it, determine its fate, and then either make it a server or a doorstop.

I want to be able to program, like some of my friends can. I've had problems that could be solved by a few lines of code, but I don't know how to compose those lines. This doesn't mean I want to be a programmer -- I want to be a tech writer or a desktop admin again. I want to know more about tearing apart hypotheses through experimentation yet getting something positive out of the process.

I want the recession to end. I want to do something bigger than selling. I want a golombki. I want more of this lounge-trance and trip-hop music that I've been digging.

I want to get going on my learning. This seems to mean I'll have to do it on my own and outside of my paid world, at least for another year. I can't control the lunacy that comes from Washington; I can't even get some of my friends to get along. However, I can spend some years and eventually understand the Mandelbrot set or how to make a screen saver.

I also want to thank everyone for replying.

-happy to get feedback and discussion, Dante