You know the old adage of:
Fast, Quality, Cheap: pick any two?
Well, it is generally true for material projects.
If you want something of good quality you either need lots of money to make it happen fast at the level of quality you want it to be, or else you need to take a lot more time to ensure it is up to the quality you want.
Well, with people and their ability, there is usually no short cut.
The way you become proficient and deeply knowledgeable of any specific thing is by simply spending enough time doing it.
Oh, sure, you can get proficient up to a point by quick methods that cost a lot, but real mastery takes time, and far more importantly, and rarely seen today, the willingness to take the less-travelled road that goes way off track from the main.
The hard road, that requires you to sacrifice time and other pursuits to the minute details of that skill you want to pursue, even to the exclusion of those around you.
This sort of experience cannot be measured in dollars, nor have I ever believed there is a substitute for it or that some large amount of cash can make up for it.
Let me know how you think.
No disagreement here. It makes sense to me to keep this in mind since this is an appropriate time to take inventory and plan.
This has been on my mind because of 2024 goals. Mastery requires time (I assume adequate interest to get started), and so it obviously requires trade offs and changes to my daily routine to even do it.
In the context of A) a general foreboding that things will get much worse; B) a conviction that I can at least influence some of what happens to and around me; and C) that sanctity is not an optional pursuit in these times, especially for the sake of my progeny, wasting my time on too many things is not ideal. Mastery makes sense, the real question for me is what, given the above context.
Mental prayer is at the top of my list, if one could master it. At minimum, I’ll follow St Francis de Sales’s advice.
I’m still thinking through which “practical” skill I want to advance in this year. I think any one who wants to learn how to butcher or hunt is probably making a smart decision. Or if not butcher, to cure meat. And that is definitely not something that can be sped up.
Butchering and curing meat are easy enough to learn to “sufficient” levels.
For real SHTF scenarios you need to identify your preferred method of survival (which you may not always have a choice on) then practice that most and alternatives in the order you may need them statistically.
Biggest threat in shtf mode are:
1. Other humans
2. Lack of Clean water
3. Lack of food
So, the skills would be:
1. Protect/attack
2. Local water source/filtering etc
3. Food production
Agreed. I am a carpenter by trade, did the 4 years of on the job apprenticeship and requisite classroom time. Even with that, I don’t consider myself in any way a “master” or really even proficient at the trade. With modern construction methods, there is just too much to learn in 4 years’ time, that a lot of guys who get their journeyman card end up specializing, Some guys will focus on concrete and foundations, other guys will be framers and drywallers, and still others will only do finish work like doors and cabinetry. All of them are journeymen carpenters, but none of them are masters of every aspect of the trade. I managed to dabble in all of it, and while I prefer the more technical and precise nature of finish carpentry, sometimes it’s just nice to swing a hammer and build concrete forms for 8 hours straight.
All that being said, every once in a while you end up working with a guy who managed to buy his way to his journeman’s card, whether through some “proof” of past experience, or through his ability to take a multiple question test well enough to challenge the journeyman test and pass. You could always tell those guys apart from the genuine journeymen. They usually had a trail of failed projects and “it’s not my fault, it’s REALLY x/y/z’s fault” excuses behind them.
Carpentry is very useful. And if you can build really awesome cabinets with secret compartments etc you can probably earn enough from a few jobs a year to have a decent side business.
>Let me know how you think.
Well I agree! I’d add that masters don’t bother measuring the amount of time they spend doing their thing. They just keep doing it while it reveals its mysteries.
Indeed
I think you’re right, and that western corporations are finding out about this the hard way, especially with hire-and-fire methods. They are increasingly unable to deliver reliable complex systems, because nobody’s a master anymore. Of course, they still deliver some frankensteined monstrosity of a system, often with more complexity than it needs and with serious problems in its reliability. Nothing works anymore, as it were.
Yes. This is the results one can expect across the board once the baseline competence has been replaced by youtube videos pretending to demonstrate the how to in “one simple trick”. In some areas (computer science, for example) the baseline principles are not even understood as mattering anymore, much less known.