Messy but entertaining since 1973
Going back to (asynchronous online) school to complete a neglected goal
Before this newsletter became the herky-jerky, runaway mine train of memoir and rambling ersatz philosophizing that is its current guise, it was a simple blog dedicated to a simple purpose: I would do my best to complete ten feats in a year and document the progress on this blog and in short video clips. The video clips were dead before I published the first issue of this newsletter. There is a pop aphorism attributed to a 19th Century Prussian military leader and scholar, Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, that “no plan survives contact with the enemy”. Well, I know the enemy. The enemy is myself. I should have known with absolutely certainty that what started as a simple goal-oriented newsletter (and video clips), would turn into something messy but entertaining, in other words, something more like me.
Well, if you are still reading, I hope that you are enjoying this ride on my version of the Six Flags Runaway Mine Train.
Let’s talk about the aphorism above. I thought that it was attributed to Sun Tzu, but a simple web search taught me the correct attribution. It was far less pithy when ole’ Helmuth spake it originally. Excerpted from a much longer essay, the original quotation is a stuffy and dry paragraph of military jargon and Prussian pomposity. Read it aloud to yourself. It verily drips off the tongue:
Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus. Nur der Laie glaubt in dem Verlauf eines Feldzuges die konsequente Durchführung eines im voraus gefaßten in allen Einzelheiten überlegten und bis ans Ende festgehaltenen, ursprünglichen Gedankens zu erblicken.
Imagine this guy’s pillow talk:
Enough about Herr Helmuth.
I forget that I started this blog right before the current, unfinished pandemic. I completed no goals in the year, but I enjoyed working on some of them, abandoned others entirely, and others, like today’s goal, I neglected. Neglected like the only plant I have ever owned—R.I.P. 5th grade African violet, you were a real one. Let me remove this massive layer of dust off of this goal, and let’s talk about it.
Start a profitable at-home business.
This should have been the most important goal, honestly. I need to work. Not because work is ennobling or inherently good. It is merely something that must be done. But I need to work. No matter how much I raise my class consciousness, I know that I have to have full-time work to feel useful. I have been brainwashed enough by Capital to peg my self-worth to how much labor I perform and how much I get paid for said labor. It’s been an embarrassingly long time since I was laid off from my job at the asbestos law firm. Coworkers who lost their jobs with me are on their second and third jobs—some have whole new careers by now. I went into a terrible spiral after losing my job, and I don’t want to start one now. In general, I feel that I have value and purpose to my family and to my friends, and that is usually enough to get me through. Never mind what the larger world thinks of me. After all, I have not been entirely idle during this time. I have done paid work in fields that I have some ability in, including research, editing, and writing. I have not been able to stitch together full-time work, or let’s be frank about the important part—full-time wages during this period. And I’ve felt like a big poop emoji about it. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like feeling bad about myself—it just happens to be how I feel most of the time. Maybe I’ll grow out of it. Insert shrug emoji:
For a longish time I have been flailing around thinking about how to make freelance writing into a work path. And what kind of writing would yield paying work. A couple of lovely readers told me that I should become a tech writer. (Or as my instructor prefers, technical communicator). One even showed me, in great detail, how she got started in the field. This was great information, but no plan survives the first contact with the enemy. And I am that enemy. In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, I immediately became mired in self-loathing and doubt. Unable to psychically (or physically) deal with that amount of psychic self-owning, I allowed myself to become distracted from this goal. And so I would have remained had Jennifer not suggested a course in technical writing that she found online. It was something of a Goldilocks course. It seemed to be well-respected, well-reviewed and not a weird business cult of personality run by some guy named Ron who would teach you all the secrets of his “system”.
Enough about Ron.
Jennifer and I talked a bit about me taking this course while I was in Texas, and quite a bit more when I came home. I immediately balked at the price. And then continued to do so for some time. I feel intense guilt when Jennifer spends any money over fifty bucks on me. Especially when I am all but dependent on her. I am also completely afraid that I’m going to fail the class, for once not because I won’t do my work, but that my work will be found to be inadequate. And that my lack of formal education will become glaringly obvious. There is nothing I hate worse on a job application than the following field:
I often regret even going to college. I do not regret the friends that I made in the schools I went to. I do not regret what I learned in the classes that I took. I do not regret excellent books and other media that I was exposed to. I do regret with all my heart dropping out of college. I do regret not finishing when I went back. More than regret, I have shame. Shame over the money that I wasted. Money that my parents could have used to improve their own lives. Shame at the time I wasted. Shame at not finishing something that I set out to do. Shame over the wasted opportunities. Shame never ending, world without end.
Man, I am tired of shame. Just sick and tired of it. I just had a birthday, and we’re calling this a new year. Forty-eight is the year of no shame. Let’s call it a resolution, a promise to change, let’s call it whatever helps to take this poison from my veins.
I swear that I will do my best in this class. I will not self-sabotage. I will turn my assignments in on time. I will join class discussions on the forums. I will ask questions when I’m confused. I will not catastrophize prematurely. I will not be ashamed of my lack of formal education—on this I will do my best. I have many successful friends that have no college degrees. If their lack of formal credential has held them back, I have not seen it. I need to remember them. To focus on the potential for success. To stop beating myself up for something I did not complete almost three decades ago. Easier said than done, but I am committed to trusting in my own abilities. The fact is, I am an autodidact who has a knack for research and a hunger for knowledge that will serve me well in technical communication. I am a decent writer with a surprisingly large readership. I can do this.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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