One of the most indelible images I have of High School was the day I discovered that it was getting harder to find a book that I hadn’t read in our library. I almost always had a book to read. When I was a Senior, I had 2 study halls because I had taken all the courses I needed and had more than enough credits to graduate already. So I spent one study hall socializing studying and one reading or daydreaming or wishing I was someone else.
When Al Gore invented the internet, I was in heaven. All of a sudden, I had access to information of all kinds. Now I can find a YouTube video or an Instructable post on how make or do anything from how to make my own paper to how to tie a hemp bracelet to how to keep water out of my boat fuel tank–they lie about that, you can’t keep water out of a boat fuel tank. I think there are little water gremlins who wait until you are gone and open up the fuel cap and pour water by little gremlin buckets full down the filler opening, but I digress.
I have learned how to make bracelets and key fobs. I know how to make a viking sword from an old lawn mower blade, I haven’t, but I know how. I can take an old book cover and make it into a new journal. I know how to take a tarp and long piece of paracord and make a tent for after the Zombie Apocalypse. Don’t laugh, you may not believe in the Zombie Apocalypse but I will be the first person you text after it all goes to elephant excrement and want to know what the hell a paracord is. I have built my own desk. I changed a motor on my daughter’s car. It would never start again, but I did change it, but again I digress.
Digression, though, is what life is all about. If I became obsessed (no smart ass comments from my family) with only one thing, I would miss out on all the other digressions that make life so alive. So I am trying to do now what I forgot about for a long time. I am trying to live for today, in the moment. That which has my attention today probably won’t have it tomorrow. I’m not ADD, well maybe a little, can you be a little, oh look, there goes a squirrel, but, again I digress, again.
The Internet, e-books, Half-Price Books, Libraries, e-libraries: all these modern marvels give me an opening to more knowledge than a boy from a small school in Eastern Kentucky could have ever hoped to have. So many books, so many new skills to learn, so many digressions,so little time.
The Purposeful Geek 