Recently I posted a quote about academics being mental conformists (which also means mental weaklings… but we all knew that). Specifically referring to academia, their lockstep thought and lemming-like propensity to stampede is all pervasive. It stunts their growth. They learn only so much, and then it’s variations on a theme until they die.
Academics can be fine people individually (it’s the collective that sucks) but even if you’re talking to an individual, you have to be careful. In many, the hive mind resides behind the mask. You have to watch out; if they detect you’re of “the other” (however they define it that particular week) they’ll become cruel and vindictive. They’re not even nice to each other. They’re constantly fighting about internal politics that don’t matter anywhere else. You don’t want to get caught up in their dumb little dramas! They’ll piss and moan for decades about some committee meeting that would bore sane people to death in an hour. They’re fish that can’t see the water in which they swim and therefore deny there’s any such thing as water. Since they’ve never been out of it… they’re right for their own world and wrong for the universe as a whole. This also means if you’ve got a problem that isn’t solved by one of their cookie cutter solutions they’ll be stumped. They’ll continue trying the same approach (whether it works or not) until the money is gone and they’re wheeled out of their office having attained complete geezerhood.
I shudder to remember my time in academia. I went behind enemy lines to get what learning I could. I fled in terror as soon as I’d plundered what was available and no more learning was at hand. I risked becoming incurably dull.
It’s sad what academia does to it’s younger more gullible members. Look at an impoverished adjunct professor slaving in the galleys of the Lotus eaters. Highly credentialed and modestly bright; yet earning slightly more than minimum wage (possibly less) and working huge hours. Trapped by the sunk cost fallacy and too brainwashed to seek a real paycheck elsewhere. A man digging a ditch, makes a ditch and gets paid a fair wage. It’s hard labor but he drinks beer on the weekend and the world needed the ditch. He has an OK life. An adjunct professor makes nothing and gets paid just enough to go broke slowly while his shoulders sag under imaginary stress.
Sometimes that sort of shit happens in the world where the rest of us live. It gets me down. Luckily, I found a cure. I’m sharing it with you; free of charge:
Build a boat.
It doesn’t have to be a big boat. It doesn’t even have to be a boat. But you have to build it and you have to use it. No cheating. Get out your tools and make the damn thing. Then use it.
The thing about a boat (or whatever you choose as an alternative) is you can assess failure the old fashioned way; put it in the water. If it sinks, it sucks. No amount of committee meetings, group hugs, collective brainstorming sessions, votes, whiteboard diagrams, or discussion will make a sunk boat right or make the boat that you built and is bobbing in the waves into an “un-boat”. If it floats and works, it’s right. Nobody else’s opinion matters.
Interface with reality and the group project people flee. They don’t want to hear about your dumb little hobby. It scares them. They can’t make suggestions about rocker curves, epoxy mixes, rigging setups, or weight distribution… because the water will test their theories and that terrifies them.
I found that people who mess with boats are a different breed. They way they assess success or failure is whether the damn thing sinks or not; so they are profoundly confident and deeply humble. If they fuck up they’ll find out in the worst possible way. Nor do they seem overly impressed with degrees in “boat-ology”.
If your craft does well, they’re supportive… even if you’re just a novice and their boat is better. It’s not a zero sum game. There’s plenty of water to float as many boats as there are people. If your boat sucks they don’t have to tell you because you already know. (I was hanging out with small boat builders. It may be very different for big boats. Then again the Titanic was built by the best professionals in the field.)
If you’re feeling awash in a sea of dipshits; build a boat. It will tell you what you need to know. It will encourage you to improve. It will not require meetings. It will tell you what’s important and what’s not. (Hint: the water doesn’t give a shit what color paint you choose but it cares about how you anchored the rudder’s pintle and gudgeon. Don’t argue with the water; it doesn’t speak bullshit.)
It worked for me, if you don’t like boats, choose your own substitute. Leave the academics to their playpens and enjoy using your mind. It’ll be worth it.