RoR: Forum

Luke,

This was great!

I love this quote:

In the end, the minutes of my life belong to me and not to you. I will spend them at my discretion and not at yours.

Exactly.
The fact that you don't want to be "educated" on someone else's timetable doesn't mean that you don't take time to educate yourself on yours. To accuse "open advocacy of evasion" would be a huge, and irrational, leap to me.

Nice job.

Erica

Post 1

Monday, April 9, 2007 - 8:26am

Agree - an interesting speech to give...

Post 2

Monday, April 9, 2007 - 7:53pm

I like this speech. Very pertinent to anyone who works in an office....

If I can offer one bit of constructive criticism. The whole speech is kinda chatty and funny - until the revelation about the woman at the end which is sharp and jarring and out of tone with the rest of the content. Maybe this is deliberate? Maybe it could be phrased in a more light hearted way? Or is it not something to be made light hearted?

Interested in how you expect the audience to react.

Very good!

Post 3

Monday, April 9, 2007 - 8:59pm

I like the idea of not having to be propagandized, not having to listen to or read spam and if that's a simple summation of your theme, great.

However, I don't like the abstract summation or title or label you've adjoined this to or used to summarize your point of view:

"I know enough". If taken literally - as people in an audience would have no reason not to do, that is a mistake (and I assume that is not an intellectually precise description of your actual attitude toward unsolicited but valid advice or insights). One never knows enough. That's not the problem with what this woman was doing. It's not as if she was giving you useful factual or practical or work-related or social skills knowledge and you were saying I'm already so brilliant I don't want it. Or I just don't have time or room for more knowledge, etc.

Your anecdote or story is a good one, and worthy of a talk. Your -philosophical- summation or labelling of it is not as good.

There is a Korean proverb, the wise man learns even from a fool. For myself, I will never know enough and the person of greatest value is the one who can actually give me a new insight, a new bit of non-trivial knowledge. Certainly I don't "know enough" in areas where I am inexperienced or a novice, but that's even in so in areas where I am an expert.

Post 4

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 3:05am

I agree with Phil about the uncomfortable title but could not invent a better one.

Besides, I wanted to hammer home the point Erica made in Post 0 about learning on my own timetable and not that of another.

The main point here is that I know enough to live without useless information cluttering my mind and life.

You have probably heard the phrase, "I could have gone my entire life without knowing that!" For instance, if a woman with whom I have no intimacy tells me out of the blue that she has a yeast infection, "I could have gone my entire life without knowing that!" In that example, I definitely already "know enough" and to know more would subtract rather than add enjoyment to my life. If Phil just drops a large load of brown excrement in his latest toilet visit and shares the graphic details with me, "I could have gone my entire life without knowing that!" You get the idea.

While "the true is the good and the false is the evil," this does not mean I need to know the truth of nonessentials ad nauseum.

Post 5

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 10:03am

I agree with Phil about the uncomfortable title but could not invent a better one.

Besides, I wanted to hammer home the point Erica made in Post 0 about learning on my own timetable and not that of another. (Luke)

Luke, I liked the title; I thought it was clever actually.

And it still seems to me that one has to want to "see" evasion in order to automatically assume it from the title, or the speech... I didn't "go there", myself.

What I took from your words went along the lines of,

"I know enough to know when I need to seek further information."
Or,
"I know enough to know when I need the benefit of someone else's knowledge."
And,
"I know enough to know how to best spend my own time."

(I actually hadn't thought of the humorous, but true, examples in your post #4 :-)

"I know enough to know I could've lived well for the rest of my life without that piece of information!"

Of course, my reaction may be based on the fact that I know enough about Luke Setzer's character to know that he is hardly an evader. But total strangers may make all kinds of leaps when they hear the speech. Having said that, I admit it is entirely possible that...

I don't know enough about what I'm talking about to properly comment on this whole evasion concept....

But I know enough to know that I liked the speech...
:-)

Erica

Post 6

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 10:53am

Nicely said, Erica......;-)

Post 7

Tuesday, April 10, 2007 - 6:57pm

Mister Learn Enough

Although, usually people don't think of learning when they think of reading. One learns all the time, simply by sensing your current surroundings and thinking about things momentarily (not even long term), you are temporarily learning. Reading the newspaper, you are learning current events, how the world is working, considering how recently Learned current events might effect your near and long term future.

Learn
To gain knowledge, comprehension, or mastery of through experience or study

If you like.

I haven't any use for this, please stop sending it to me.

Post 8

Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - 6:13am