The Eternal Student
Ruth Ann is always learning, or at least trying to, usually without benefit of classroom.
A college dropout, she thinks trying to educate today’s digital kids in last century’s school systems is nuts.
She enjoys adding to her databases, both wetware and software.
Her current education comes from the dozens of print and online publications to which she subscribes, TED talks, the occasional class or seminar, fellow humans, and other living and dead things.
Ruth Ann’s educational philosophy, like so much of her thinking, is based on something she saw on television back in the last century. In an episode of All In The Family, a developmentally disabled character portrayed by Richard Masur shows the bigot Archie Bunker a framed quotation: “Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.”
Think about every person you encounter as your superior in some way, and see what you can learn. (Even if the lesson is “behavior to avoid.”)
Folly + Time = Genius
Day 207 Years ago, I ordered a head-to-toe suit designed to keep insects out. If there are ten people in a room, I’m the one who gets bitten, so I am always on the lookout for products that will protect me. My husband thought this suit was the height of folly, the ultimate waste of [...]
Full StorySeven Down
Day 206 The past two weeks have afforded endless opportunities for catharsis and transformation. I got off the merry-go-round of my life, freed of commitments because of pressing family business, improvising each day, and the days became weeks. On the road back to my so-called-normal life, there have been several long, scenic drives in the countryside. I’ve passed through [...]
Full StoryAll Is Vanity
Day 205 When the Book of Ecclesiastes was written, “vanity” referred not so much to self-adoration as to the futility of human endeavor. My late mother used to (misquote) scripture, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” All our labor is in vain, all that we produce and collect and accomplish means…what? Many people described my mother as [...]
Full StoryMama Said There’d Be Days Like This
Day 204 That’s right. The choices are: rough road to the right, rough road to the left, or turn around and go back. Sometimes I cut my losses and turn around. Not today. I brace myself and resolve to concentrate on the scenery instead of the rough road.
Full StoryThere’s No Place Like It
Day 203 I have given myself permission to relinquish all patterns and expectations during this time of transition. I am eating food I ordinarily would not eat, and I am consuming quantities that I ordinarily would not consume. My sleep patterns are disrupted because of travel and long hours of work. (Yes, I know I’m [...]
Full StoryKeep Calm And Carry On
Day 202 There were two lines, and I was prepared to join whichever one moved fastest. At my left, the customer’s voice was loud and sharp. “Two dollars and nineteen cents for THAT?” The cashier did not make eye contact, but politely repeated the total. To my shock, the customer flung the cash at the [...]
Full StoryTMI?
Day 201 An intimate friend described what I write here as “revealing your underbelly.” Yikes. Is that what I’m doing? A person of my acquaintance put so many details of her private life online that I had to turn away from the trainwreck. She overshared to the point of revulsion. Apparently unaware that she was revealing her lack [...]
Full StoryWuv Oo
Day 198 My first thought upon awakening almost every morning: “Where am I?” I travel so frequently that until I open my eyes, I have no idea whether I’m in the United States or not, whether I’m in a familiar bed or not, whether I’m alone or not. If I’m not alone, I’m with my [...]
Full StoryDoggone Neighbor
Day 197 How late should I be allowed to sleep in on a Saturday morning the week of my mother’s funeral after I have crossed an ocean to say goodbye? I thought I deserved to be undisturbed in the 7am hour, but a neighbor apparently thought otherwise. She was hollering, as dog owners sometimes do, [...]
Full StoryVapor
Day 195 I am mourning. My mother died, and it is as if a bubble burst and the tiniest particles are visible for a moment, then gone. That’s how I’m experiencing the vanishing history of me. Driving around the old neighborhoods is surreal – the places and the people are dramatically aged or gone forever. The [...]
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