That was almost the title of this blog. "I can do better." There are three things I consider myself exceptional at: Connect Four, Super Smash Bros (for 64), sarcasm, and counting. I think there are other things I could be extremely good at, but for whatever reason am not.
I debate whether or not this is a character flaw. Most people who are exceptional are exceptional at very few things: Michael Jordan couldn't play baseball and thus far can't manage his own team, for a downright cliche example. In "A Study in Scarlet" (which if you haven't read I strongly encourage you to do, it's downright fascinating and better than this drivel) a personal hero, Sherlock Holmes, once said
"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it."
then goes on to state that a wise person fills the attic with only the tools of the trade to which he will resign. A carpenter grabs saws and hammers, and has no need for a telescope or an oil filter. This is the same man that didn't know that the Earth revolved around the sun, and upon learning it vowed to do everything he could to forget it. Yes, I know Sherlock is a fictional character, but he's also the world's greatest detective not named Batman. Speaking of which...
So I ask myself, who is really, really good at lots of different types of things? There's Batman, who is fictional. There's Jesus, who is God as a human. And there's Will Smith, who can sing, dance, act, play basketball, and I'm told is very, very smart (like, got into a good school but passed up on it to star in The Fresh Prince. No I will not research this!) Most people aren't exceptional at
The fact that I won't be the best at something keeps me from wanting to be very, very good at it. It would take a lot of work to become the world's best math teacher, and if I were to try (and probably failing) I wouldn't be very good at quoting last week's 30Rock. Is it worth it? I don't know. Probably. But I know I can do better.
I debate whether or not this is a character flaw. Most people who are exceptional are exceptional at very few things: Michael Jordan couldn't play baseball and thus far can't manage his own team, for a downright cliche example. In "A Study in Scarlet" (which if you haven't read I strongly encourage you to do, it's downright fascinating and better than this drivel) a personal hero, Sherlock Holmes, once said
"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it."
then goes on to state that a wise person fills the attic with only the tools of the trade to which he will resign. A carpenter grabs saws and hammers, and has no need for a telescope or an oil filter. This is the same man that didn't know that the Earth revolved around the sun, and upon learning it vowed to do everything he could to forget it. Yes, I know Sherlock is a fictional character, but he's also the world's greatest detective not named Batman. Speaking of which...
So I ask myself, who is really, really good at lots of different types of things? There's Batman, who is fictional. There's Jesus, who is God as a human. And there's Will Smith, who can sing, dance, act, play basketball, and I'm told is very, very smart (like, got into a good school but passed up on it to star in The Fresh Prince. No I will not research this!) Most people aren't exceptional at
The fact that I won't be the best at something keeps me from wanting to be very, very good at it. It would take a lot of work to become the world's best math teacher, and if I were to try (and probably failing) I wouldn't be very good at quoting last week's 30Rock. Is it worth it? I don't know. Probably. But I know I can do better.
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