08-17-2021, 05:14 AM
On a related note...
In my youth, it turned out that the kids I spent a lot of time with in play-n-pretend tended to survival scenarios. My Dad had some ideas on that, but only what little he experienced growing up poor and moving pretty often. Because of his habits, I grew up poor and moving pretty often, too. But I paid attention to some things he didn't, and developed an odd talent for making life tolerable through routines and comfort systems. I can grow stuff, but I'm a lot better at assessing what's available to make life tolerable against weather and other conditions. Oddly, it's more of a post-industrial skill, in that it required an industrial world to experience enough places and conditions to build an understanding. By the way, the broad general term for what I really enjoy doing is called "civil engineering." On top of that, I really do enjoy organizational theory and watching how people operate in different environments.
Not that I'm expert in either field, but it's a driving interest of mine. I once had a very old book on civil engineering, and someone stole it from me. It was full of instructions on how to calculate all kinds of things, and included sections on how to decide where to drill a well, and different ways you can do it with varying levels of technology. There were sections on common chemicals and interactions, assessing materials, etc. Lord, how I miss that book. Still, it's typical of how my mind runs. I automatically tend to assess problems based on what we can do about them with what's on hand. And everywhere I go, regardless of what's happening on the surface, some part of me is noticing and analyzing from that perspective.
It's a good thing to know yourself that way, to know what really interests you. Most people are surprised that what they honestly believed was their best career turned out to be something totally different when you look at their talents and driving interests. That was how I prospered in the military -- I was able to discern patterns in human behavior so that, regardless of what was dumped on us from the chain above, I always felt confident that the people involved in following those orders could be organized to make the most of it. It was just a matter of discerning what folks were good at and structuring the task to match the people.
In my youth, it turned out that the kids I spent a lot of time with in play-n-pretend tended to survival scenarios. My Dad had some ideas on that, but only what little he experienced growing up poor and moving pretty often. Because of his habits, I grew up poor and moving pretty often, too. But I paid attention to some things he didn't, and developed an odd talent for making life tolerable through routines and comfort systems. I can grow stuff, but I'm a lot better at assessing what's available to make life tolerable against weather and other conditions. Oddly, it's more of a post-industrial skill, in that it required an industrial world to experience enough places and conditions to build an understanding. By the way, the broad general term for what I really enjoy doing is called "civil engineering." On top of that, I really do enjoy organizational theory and watching how people operate in different environments.
Not that I'm expert in either field, but it's a driving interest of mine. I once had a very old book on civil engineering, and someone stole it from me. It was full of instructions on how to calculate all kinds of things, and included sections on how to decide where to drill a well, and different ways you can do it with varying levels of technology. There were sections on common chemicals and interactions, assessing materials, etc. Lord, how I miss that book. Still, it's typical of how my mind runs. I automatically tend to assess problems based on what we can do about them with what's on hand. And everywhere I go, regardless of what's happening on the surface, some part of me is noticing and analyzing from that perspective.
It's a good thing to know yourself that way, to know what really interests you. Most people are surprised that what they honestly believed was their best career turned out to be something totally different when you look at their talents and driving interests. That was how I prospered in the military -- I was able to discern patterns in human behavior so that, regardless of what was dumped on us from the chain above, I always felt confident that the people involved in following those orders could be organized to make the most of it. It was just a matter of discerning what folks were good at and structuring the task to match the people.