Listening to Krista Tippett's new podcast, Becoming Wise, and she's interviewing Maria Popova of BrainPickings. Maria quotes William James,
My experience is what I agree to attend to.
I'm reminded of the iAnthology post I wrote last night, from the Prompt, "What Are You Going To Stop Doing?"
It came up just this afternoon, as an old computer I had restored for my wife stopped working, and all I had the energy to do was a few reboots, and that was it. She said to me, "You used to fix computers." It made me think about how all of that detail and "keeping up with it" that went with being everybody in my small circle's "go-to guy" for computer repair. I just wasn't interested--or rather there were other things I was so much more interested in, that I stopped doing that. If a few reboots won't fix it, it's not a device worth using. I'm too busy either teaching string games or figuring out how to teach string games better! And gardening, and a few other things...
Teaching--the experience of sharing the learning process with others--that's what I need most to attend to. For a while I thought I could lead a campaign to spread this curriculum I've developed, organize a study to demonstrate how well it works for all sorts of things that are measurable. Then those fantasies became much less interesting as I tried to break down what doing any of it would entail. And most of those steps are things I'm not great at, or that I don't really enjoy doing. It's the teaching that infuses me with joy, and that's what I need to focus on doing.
