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Welcome to Arts and Ideas in the Air, under the tent and around Baltimore, talk about Tuesday.
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So today I thought I'd talk about the running suit parable.
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I call it a parable, I'm not sure if it quite qualifies.
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But anyway, so let's say that you wanted to go running.
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And, you know, one option is to of course just walk out your door and run.
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That sounds great.
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But maybe you don't do that. Maybe you think, you know what, I really need to have good shoes for running because it could hurt my feet.
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And so you go and you spend some time and you search up running shoes. Seems reasonable.
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I think you get some. Fine.
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And then you're about to run and you're like, well, you know, I should probably run in the right stuff.
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You know, like, something that manages to sweat so I don't get too cold or hot or, you know, having kind of thermal issues, etc.
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So then you go and research that.
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And you go, hey, try to get some of that stuff.
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And so now, maybe a month has passed, you haven't actually done any running.
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You've got all this stuff and then you're like, oh yeah, you know, I should probably read some blogs, follow some podcasts, make some magazines, books.
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I should read all this stuff before I do that so I really know what I'm going. Maybe I need to learn how to stretch and so forth.
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And then all of a sudden, it's been months, you spent a lot of time and money on preparing to run, but you never actually run.
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Maybe if you're lucky, you actually go for a run.
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That's, you know, probably still pretty rare, but, you know, people do that.
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But then you find, you know, I don't, I really don't like running. I just don't.
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And that's it.
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But a lot would never even actually do the run.
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Now I bring this up because, for two reasons.
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One, it can be a good analogy between one of the fundamental, I think, differences between conventional school approach and a Sudbury School approach.
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Conventional school is, you know, you need to learn how to run before you run.
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You need to get the right equipment before you run.
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And, you know, like, before you can do science, you've got to learn how to do the steps of a procedure and fill in the blanks and all these things, right?
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But you never actually get to do science. That's messy.
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You never actually get to do, you know, real math where you're like, you're using it for something.
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Like, guesstimations. They're very messy.
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Millions Monday just as a plug in case you want to know more things about it.
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But, you know, all the subjects are like this in one way or another.
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But the point is, you know, that at a Sudbury School, people are just doing. They're just doing.
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They are running. I mean, sometimes literally running.
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But whatever they're doing, you know, they're doing it, right?
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They're not necessarily learning how to do something. They just do it.
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And so, you know, they can do a few things with that, right?
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One, they know whether they want to pursue it or not because they're doing it.
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So that's just massively valuable.
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The second thing is if they actually do continue to pursue it, they'll get really good at it in many ways.
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You know, and there can be gaps and they can be doing something in a poor way.
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But you could also do something in a really great way.
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That's the joy of someone, like, really learning something on their own to the extent that they can.
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So, you know, like, just do it in many ways.
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And, you know, it should be a back and forth.
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And so that's one of the things that is valuable of being part of a community is that ideally there's somebody else who knows something about this thing
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that you can either ask about and be like, "Can you see if I'm doing this right?"
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Or, "Are you going to talk about this or something?" Or just kind of spot that something's really going wrong.
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Maybe you want to hold that back for just a little bit longer before going, right?
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And it doesn't have to be a lot. It doesn't have to be, like, hours and hours of class.
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It's just like, you know, a 30-second, like, "Hey, have you thought about doing that?"
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Right? Just kind of bumping you out of that really bad habit that was about to develop.
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So that's community. And that's, you know.
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And, of course, here we focus a lot on socializing because that's what humans most want to do is socialize.
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That's what they need to learn how to do, so that's what they do here.
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Now, another reason I bring up the running parable is because there are times when we hear somebody saying,
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"Oh, I'd really like to do, you know, X."
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It could be something artistic. It could be something academic.
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You know, it could be, like, even getting a job. Whatever.
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And, you know, so when they say that, instead of actually doing it,
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we generally find that they kind of often don't really pursue it.
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It's like they're saying it not because they really want to do it,
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but they think it'd be nice if they did want to do it.
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And maybe talking about it makes them want to do it.
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That doesn't usually seem to work out that way.
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And particularly if people go, "Oh, that's cool. That's nice."
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You're kind of already getting that social reward for having done it without actually having to do it,
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and then you have even less motivation.
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So this is just kind of a way of saying, you know, like, if you feel like you want to do something, do it.
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Try it. Figure out a way.
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That's really the most important thing to do.
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And not to succeed at it initially, you know, almost guaranteed to fail in some fashion or another,
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possibly quite tremendously, but, you know, just go and do it.
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As an example, podcasting. I'm making a podcast right now.
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I know nothing about it. I'm doing a terrible job. That's fine.
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And it looks like I'm not actually improving. I don't even know if I have an audience.
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If you're listening, please, please drop me a line.
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But, you know, I'm just continuing to do it.
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And, you know, I'm sure there are certain things that are better than they were that I don't even realize.
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And there are other things where probably someone, you know, someone somewhere said,
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"Hey, you know what? All those blah, blah, blah that you're doing, maybe you just reduce that."
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I was in a Zoom call with someone the other day and they just kept having this turn of phrase of,
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"In the grand scheme of things." And, like, 20 times in a conversation.
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Now, it wasn't my place to say anything about it, but I think that's a kind of phrase that you don't want to say,
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"In the grand scheme of things," too much. Because, you know, in the grand scheme of things,
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if you just keep talking about it, it really just kind of gets into your eyes.
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In the grand scheme of things, you want your eyes to be kind of clear of things.
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So, you know, just as an example.
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Although sometimes it really is useful to have someone point something out.
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Some kind of, like, you know, you have that verbal tick that you're not even aware of,
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you know, so someone can say something, right?
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So, I mean, you know, community and feedback, really important.
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But before you can get that feedback, right, you gotta do. You just gotta do it.
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And it's really hard to often just do things.
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There are a number of things where it's really, you know, you really do need something.
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You know, if you want to draw, right, you need some paper and pencil now, or pens or whatever.
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It's not that hard to get at those things, but, you know, there can be other things that one might want to do
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that is hard.
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If you want to delve into computer stuff, you gotta have a computer, right?
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So, if you want to do podcasting, well, I have a mic.
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This is actually a mic I've had for ten years.
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I made my online math course with it.
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So, it's a nice, sturdy mic that I like.
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But, you know, you need to get some recording software or something.
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Of course, I'm hosting it, so, I mean, I was already in that, you know,
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I have Anaconda already set up, and so I could just throw some files, and I've got some programs to do that.
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And, you know, there is setup to do, but the most important thing is just to actually record something.
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And even if I had none of that, you know, on my computer, at least I can just hit record,
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and it might be less good, but it would work.
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So, that's my pitch to go and do something.
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The young ones here don't seem to need anything along that kind of pitch there.
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Just go, go, go.
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And then as the students get older, you know, their aspirations get bigger,
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and therefore the barrier to take action is bigger.
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And, you know, I hope, I always hope that they actually take some steps forward.
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You know, and, or at least question why they think that, because I think also,
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going back to the running, like, a lot of people want to run not because they like running,
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but because there's some notion that it's fairly simple and fairly good for you.
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So, you know, debatable, I suppose.
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But, you know, so letting go of that sort of, you know, notion of saying,
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well, I want to do this, I want to pursue this, when you really don't.
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Just really being honest, that's a really, really nice thing.
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All right, well, I guess that's enough rambling for now.
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If you have feedback such as I ramble, I'd love to hear it.
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I've been doing this podcast thing for almost 30 days now.
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So, and, of course, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I actually record a separate piece, as this is.
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So that's quite a number of little podcasts.
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So I think I'm at a point where, you know, feedback would be great.
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All right, then, get your cool cats later and see ya.