Utagawa Yoshifuji:
Five Men Doing the Work of Ten Bodies
(Gonin jushin no hataraki) 1861

"Let nobody say that I compromised and delivered anything the easy way!"

I was wrong on several levels when I assumed that work would become easier as I aged. I presumed that I would naturally become more experienced so that my prior knowledge would accumulate to the point that I might only rarely feel baffled. Almost precisely the opposite has proven true. I find myself freshly baffled with virtually every engagement, with experience proving to be lousy preparation for whatever presents itself next. Contrary to my earlier theory of ever-expanding competence, my proficiencies wain. This feels more painful than I might have imagined. After decades of living without much ego involvement, I've lately started suffering from a wounded ego, a debilitating if rarely fatal condition that nonetheless feels alarming. My best intentions sneer back at me these days.

I have heard of people who claim to enjoy learning. I never counted myself as part of that cadre. After I'd learned, I appreciated learning from the more secure far side of the experience. The acquisition itself always unsettled me, often to genuine upset. My university days were ones of continual threat, with every professor vying for Most Annoying. I guess they wanted to challenge us. But stack a half dozen challenges on top of an overloaded class schedule and that part-time job, and what might have been merely challenging became threatening. Oh, I completed the work, but I was under constant threat more than under interested inquiry. I've long held that one of the better ways to learn how to revile some subject involves taking a class, believing that I might gain proficiency in it. Classes cram information under the probably misguided notion that anybody can explain anything to anyone else's satisfaction. My actual learning usually occurred after, when I'd found space for integrating reflection, not during the inquisition focused upon preparing for and taking tests to determine how well the cross-examination worked. It inevitably worked poorly.

At least I'm learning, not merely failing, but failing in pursuing something I feel important. The resulting humiliation sometimes approaches complete. Suppose I work a week to achieve some modest end, only to learn after completing my finishing touches that I'd misunderstood the intentions and therefore screwed up my grand été. In that case, my experience tends to ruin that day. Further, I know of no way to avoid these little misunderstandings because the understanding necessary to avoid these ends exists only in the future. It's inaccessible from everywhere on this side of there. One lives, and one learns, but one unavoidably learns later, often well after when that learning might have proven most useful. Iterate a few times, and you might wound your self-confidence. Too Late Schmart remains one of the more prescient Pennsylvania Dutch aphorisms.

I'd say I'm working if I wasn't wronging more. Perhaps I'm Wronking, diligently engaged in producing generally wrong results. I'm learning—again, the old-fashioned hard way—to be much more careful and triple-check before acting. Even then, I'm more apt to find I've failed than succeeded. Remember, I keep telling myself; primary experience exists to fuck things up. In reflection, perfection might later emerge, often only as a poorly remembered artifact from some prior existence. Likely, then, the result had been falling even further from the expectation than I remembered. Selective memory serves its purposes, if not usually the one recalled.

I keep telling myself that I'll do better next time and that this learning curve must eventually flatten. I thrive on such false promises. I might be better if I followed the old advice and just settled in to get used to a steady diet of disappointment. After all, I'm no longer building a budding career. It's likely mostly downhill from here. I have little left to lose and less to gain from any engagement in which I might succeed or fail. I can finally afford to be a disappointment, so I might just as well revel in it. The next time, I'll very likely discover a whole new way to screw it up and yet another way to slink away from that latest assignment. I considered quitting, but I'm no quitter. They'll have to trade me in for someone even less experienced if they hope to avoid my next mess. Let nobody say that I ever compromised and delivered anything the easy way! Where's the Grace in that?

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz