On Aging: Sometimes I Don't WANNA Learn Anything New
/Here's a fact: I spend my time learning stuff. I'm a professional learner.
But I gotta tell you: Sometimes it just wears a woman down. Sometimes I just wanna go sit in the rocker and watch the clouds.
Because it's tiring. And because if it's not one thing, it's another.
Today's Big Adventures In Learning, for example, included the realization that I gotta get up to speed on yeast science, something to which I'd never given a thought until today. When I collided head-on with it during my research.
And then there's the non-stop grind of learning to live digital. The biggest cohort in the US, the "Millennials," grew up digital. I, however, did not. And sometimes that makes me want to tear out what's left of my old lady hair.
To wit: I plan to interview people for the new project on which I'm working, and in another of today's Big Adventures in Learning, I spent time figuring out how to record an audio (because I don't care about the visual part) Skype/FaceTime call.
That's because
Back in the Old Days, when I interviewed people for Ambitious Brew, I plugged a headset into my landline and typed as I interviewed. (With one exception: I recorded one interview face-to-face, using an absurdly stupid, early generation, Radio Shack digital recorder.)
This time around, however, I only need an application that would allow me to record a Skype/FT call. But of course that necessitates that I a) scout possible applications; and b) download and learn to use one. At this point in the day, my brain aches just thinking about it.
(The good news is that most of the apps appeared to be designed for dimwits. Which is a step up from when I was a kid, slogging through eight feet of snow to the candle-powered, community PC station, when every goddamn thing, hard or soft, was designed by engineers for other engineers.)
I know. I know: Learning is a lifelong experience! When we stop learning, we die! Etc. and blah blah blah.
To which this old lady says: Phhhhtttt. It's tiring. My brain hurts from learning, and the idea of sitting in my or any other rocker, staring at the sky, sounds like a dandy alternative to the daily grind of Big Adventures In Learning.
So shoot me.