Make Me Do Things, I Done Learnin

A Swift Story

“I’ll never get stuck in a musical time-period like my parents; I’ll always stay hip to the newest cool music”

Maybe you didn’t say this about MUSIC when you were frustrated with your elders’ dated sense of style, but you probably said it about something. Maybe it was watching your old uncle brag about how he still has a flip-phone? Perhaps a crusty teacher rebelled against the “New Math”. Did you have anyone in your neighborhood who refused to use power-tools, or refused to use portable power tools, or still went to the bank teller despite ATMs being around since the 1980s? Chances are, you’ve witnessed conservatism and refusal to change in some form. I’m here to tell you, however, it doesn’t happen like you think it does. What happens is people clutch to familiarity and avoid change because it has an upfront cost which is not tasty. The meek don’t inherit the earth, the young do.

At age 48 I said to my wife…

“Honey, maybe our #1 (our oldest son, 9) should just skip the half-million-dollar colleges and go to Lambda School and learn how to code, learn more efficiently, and get to doing meaningful work much quicker than his peers?”

As a keen study of what new concepts would change the world and become great long-term investments, I couldn’t afford to continue looking at things differently, or lose touch with the newest things. While 4-man bands of my youth dropped to just an “emcee” plus a “DJ” with Hip-Hop, and then furthermore…