This is a little over the top but I absolutely live by the "everything is a mentor" mentality. I think that every single person in this world has something to offer. The mean people. The nice people. The homeless people. The millionaires. The rich smart nice bosses. The rich idiotic mean bosses. Everyone. When I was 15 or 16 years old I hung out with a pretty rough crowd. I was in high school, good grades, played the game right, etc. My friends were mostly 18-24 year olds living at their parents house or in long term motels. Selling drugs, occasionally working, in and out of jail etc. Girls who relied on their boyfriends for everything and would flail around like a miserable whore when their guy would get locked up. I knew I would graduate high school at the top of my class and go to a college and make a life. But this was fun in the mean time. I was full of fuck my parents teenage angst and searching for something more thrilling than homework. One of the guys I was closest with was a very good at dealing drugs and making money, but he was an utter moron at everything else, including not getting caught at selling said drugs. He went away 3 times for felony possession with intent - once for jaywalking with an 28 gram bags of blow in his pocket. Luckily for him, California is a miserable failure in terms of managing their prisons so Prop 37 was passed, he was out in 3 months and I picked him up from Twin Towers. Now this guy was really stupid. As it, it was hard to have a conversation with him sometimes because the things that went on in our heads were so far apart. I looked down on him. I had fun with him and 'respected' him because he demanded respect. People who are in an out of prison are obsessive about their loyalty and respect. But I mostly thought he was a worthless waste of space and had nothing to offer me or anyone else. We stopped at a place on the way home to get some steak and beer at one of those dingy places with mirrors on the ceiling and waitresses in cowboy lingerie. And he's the happiest motherfucker in the world. He's got everything he wants. He has beer, steak, a ride home and a bunch of half naked women around him. In that moment he didn't care about anything else. And that's when I realized that he had a lot more to offer me than I thought. I had probably never experienced the level of happiness and bliss he was experiencing at that moment. I would probably never demand the level of respect he had from strangers on the street. The way he carried himself, the way he looked at people and listened to what they had to say and then either violently dismissed it or made them feel like they had just said the smartest thing. I had none of this. I was wrapped up in a selfish little bubble of elitism and considered myself better than everyone around me. Once I started looking at the people around me like that, I started learning a lot more and became a lot happier. I don't take advice on how to stay out of prison from this guy. But I still enjoy a good steak and beer at a hole in the wall and enjoy it for what it is. I try to let the world and stress and to-do lists fall away and live in the moment and have a half hour of bliss. Everyone is a mentor for something. No one is a mentor for everything. The best way to live is to soak up as much from everyone around you and decide how you're going to take the pieces and apply it to your life or your job or your hobbies.Everything is a mentor. If you are a zero, and have passion for reinvention, then everything you look at will be a metaphor for what you want to do. The tree you see, with roots you don’t, with underground water that feeds it, is a metaphor for computer programming if you connect the dots. And everything you look at, you will connect the dots.
Whilst the article infuriated me your reply made up for its irritation thus you are today my mentor. Long ago I decided that the world which in turns confuses, delights, depresses and encourages, sometimes with kaleidoscopic unpredictability could be considered some vast taunting machinery engineered by a malevolent demiurge but that way would lie, at best, self pity and bitterness. Instead I decided I would treat it as a university to which I had unwittingly won a lifetime scholarship; everyone was professor, every situation I might consider difficult simply a surprise test. When I run into a wall of frustration I realise I've forgotten about the university.
I can relate to this, and the rest of your piece so much. Sometimes I find myself teetering on falling into the trap of elitism-bubble, and as much as I like to try and keep it in check, of course there are times when I slip. But the one thing that always breaks it off, is realising exactly the same conclusion you did when being in that steakhouse: That person is currently experiencing a euphoria and at the absolute peak of their happiness and a sense of all's-right-in-the-world. And I realise the issue is not them, but a wave of jealousy sweeping over me that needs to be put back into place. It's quite funny, my better half and I were driving the other day and a very similar topic topic came up, and in true blunt form I blurted out, "You know, sometimes I wish I were just really dumb". She was slightly miffed as to why I'd say such a thing, and I explained it wasn't just an elitist whinge, and that dumb was not the right word to use, but what I meant was: sometimes I wished I wasn't aware and educated on the impact of bigger/global issues (e.g. how the debt ceiling impasse could affect global markets, and affect her/myself/everyone else), and that I could just focus on the here-and-the-now on a constant basis, and have that sense of happiness and bliss in the small things, much like your mate with his steak and cowboy lingerie waitresses (which, by the way, sounds awesome). She understood and somewhat agreed with where I was coming from, but then reminded me of some common interests (travel, history, art, cultures, foreign languages etc) and reminded me a) I wouldn't be the person I am and b) we probably wouldn't be together, because we wouldn't have the same level of connection together, shared interests etc. That made me snap out of my funk I almost got into and realise how happy I was, and that being jealous is only self-defeating. I can't argue against or even begin to compete this, well said. If only they told that to school kids more often.I was wrapped up in a selfish little bubble of elitism and considered myself better than everyone around me.
Everyone is a mentor for something. No one is a mentor for everything. The best way to live is to soak up as much from everyone around you and decide how you're going to take the pieces and apply it to your life or your job or your hobbies.
I've often felt the same exact way. There is a lot of truth in the old statement "Ignorance is Bliss." If you don't know what you're missing, if you don't have concerns for world affairs or politics or what to cook for dinner tonight, if you don't know that you don't know something. I suppose it would be a lot easier to be happy.It's quite funny, my better half and I were driving the other day and a very similar topic topic came up, and in true blunt form I blurted out, "You know, sometimes I wish I were just really dumb".
I absolutely agree that sometimes, and probably more often-than-not, ignorance is indeed bliss. I grew up in an area that was quite typical of apathetic attitudes regarding politics and broader social issues (some will say that's most of Australia haha), and it baffled me, even from a young age why so many people really didn't give a toss about state and federal elections, usuly with a "they've been crap, but I'll give 'em another vote this time" mentality. Long story short, it'd be less proactive/rectifying actions, more kneejerk responses, and more worry about football, cricket, and where the next smokes/case of beer was coming from. And yet, as previously discussed here, they were probably more content/happy than I was, because they didn't concern themselves with anything beyond their immediate control.