I am a textually promiscuous creature. I have strings of one night stands with books, read what I want from them, and quit. If I really like what I find I may hook back up with the book for a second helping. If it is really good, I may go on to have a passionate affair with the text. Whereas in marriage I am monogamous, my booklife has led me into an open and ongoing  polyamorous engagement with the written word. The pursuit of knowledge is enlivened by the thrill of the chase.
A few recent titles are helping me make heads and tails of my voluminous readings. The first is by James Marcus Bach, son of Richard Bach (who wrote the ever popular Jonathan Livingston Seagull). His son James is a high school drop out who none the less found his place in the world as an expert in the field of computer software testing. I can relate to James on many levels. It’s a wonder I made it through the tribulations of high school. I didn’t fare much better in college, which I did drop out of, even though I attended one of the most liberal and radical academies in the United States, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I did do a lot of learning while at Antioch, but mostly outside of class: how to use and work at a library (a primary skill that has taken me very far, praise be Herochiel), pirate radio (I’m still on the airwaves to this day, though now on an FCC sanctioned frequency), and getting my feet wet in a more or less professional recording studio; musick has always been one of my passions.
It didn’t take much longer than a year at Antioch to realize that college wasn’t for me. I knew the fields I wanted to pursue: dreams, writing, radio and musick, among others. I knew that I may have to create my own fields. I also knew that I could do a lot of learning on my own. I tended to read the things I found at the library, things I was intensely interested in, made my own notes and wrote my own essays about. Since I wasn’t doing well in the school, and hated living in the dorms, I knew I should go back home, get a job, get my own place and start working towards my dreams. Secrets of A Buccaneer Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion CAn Lead to A Lifetime of Success is a gem of a book for all free spirits who feel restricted by the shackles universities tend to throw on the imagination. Granted, at Antioch I could have leveraged the available tools to my advantage if I’d been more mature. Even so I would have put myself in horrible debt. No one should be burdened with an education whose cost is the size of a princely mortgage. Knowledge and wisdom should not come with a caveat of indentured servitude.
Lifelong learners will enjoy this book for its useful tips on self-education. I especially liked his ideas on creating a personal syllabus. James Bach also gives tips on buccaneering at work, on how to hack your way into desired professional positions, even if credentials, like a college degree, or types of work experience are lacking. I hold it to be true. In life, if something is desired enough, with feeling backed by effort, those dreamed of heights can be reached.
Another excellent book I’ve been dipping into is DIY U: Edupunks, Edupeneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education by Anaya Kamenetz. The first sections tackles problems like the one I mentioned above: the increasing cost of a college education and the disastrous effects this is having on our society. It already seems evident to me, so I skimmed over this part to the next section where she elaborates on various innovations, solutions, and models that bypass the hallowed halls of higher learning all together. While many of these solutions are in their infancy stages, it is nice to have some alternatives proposed. DIY is the future and we are living in it.
The third book in this trilogy of educational transformation is a 2006 title from O’Reilly. Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain, by Ron Hale-Evans is bursting to the brim with seventy-five exercises to set your mind on fire, and give you a little boost on the path towards becoming a Mentat Jedi. Broken down into sections on memory, information processing, clarity, math, mental fitness, and others this is a trusty little guide to keep at hand, useful in those moments when you’re feeling intellectually sluggish. Some of my favorites are “keep a dream journal”, “play board games”, “learn an artificial language”, “consume your information in chunks”, “deck yourself out”, and “stash things in nooks and crannies.” Humans learn by playing games.
I’ll be keeping these around as I continue to develop my own curriculum vitae.
