I was in Trader Joe’s yesterday afternoon. My wine collection had gotten low. In fact, it had completely run out. As Trader Joe’s has the best reasonably priced imported wine selection, at least around here in Cali, that is my go-to spot. Of course, I grabbed some ingredients for dinner, as well.
 
The cashiers, and, in fact, all the staff at Trader Joe’s are always overly friendly and talkative. For the decades I’ve been going there, this had never changed. I have long wondered are they instructed to do that, or do they simply hire a person with that personality???
 
Most of the people are nice, and that minor bit of talking is fine. ...Though I’m not really one for small talk. Some, however, take it way too far. But, whatever… They’re just doing what they’re doing, living their life as best as they can. Plus, as stated, they have a good, imported selection of wine.
 
As I was checking out, the casher boldly asked me, “Are you a professor?” That question kind of threw me back for a second. Kind of funny, but I used to get asked that question a lot. Back in the long ago and the far-far away. …Back when I was teaching a lot of classes. But, I haven’t got hit with that question for a long-long time. She followed up, “…By the way you’re dressed…”
 
My answer was, “Once upon a time…”
 
The thing is, the teaching game has changed so much. I used to bounce around from college to university to the seminar circuit and back again a lot in the late 1990s and well into the 2000s. You can even see some of the adverts for the classes I taught posted on the Sundries page on this site.
 
I don’t really maintain that page very much. I basically put it up several years ago, and that was that. But, there are a few fun things to check out if you want to peer deeply into my past. …Or, not???
 
But anyway… Most of my teaching experiences were great. The classes I taught were always well received and I believe the participants got the chance to learn a little something. Mostly, these classes focused on filmmaking.

The only bad experience I had was in this one class where I had one of those students who, for lack of a better term, “Had a chip on her shoulder.” She went after me and this other student who made a comment she didn’t like. …She obviously had come to the course looking for a fight.
 
I’ve written about that whole experience somewhere??? Where it is, I forget??? But, it is Out There in some book or some Some Thing.
 
The problem with people like that is, they ruin the experience for the everyone. They are only thinking about what they feel, (as distorted as what they feel may be), and they base all of their action(s) upon that motivation, considering no one but themselves. They only care about what THEY want. It’s totally the game of, “Me, me, me.” That class got really killed by what she did. It was palpable. I always felt sorry for the students. I tried to say, “Fuck it,” and quit. But, the university begged me to come back and keep the class going. I did. But, after that, the damage was done. Some people are just so-so selfish.
 
I taught (semi-professionally) for another couple of years after that, but then times changed—as times tend to do.

I was always about the face-to-face in teaching. Then/there is the true meetings of minds, where the learning can be learned and the information truly transmitted; person-to-person. Then came all the on-line study stuff. It was cheaper for schools to teach classes on-line than in person. The pandemic also fucked up a lot of stuff, as we all understand. So, I faded away from the game.
 
Funny/Interesting, the whole reason I went to Grad School, in the first place, was to teach. But, it never really became my vocation. At one point, later in my life, I just realized that I had developed a skillset in the film game that could be passed on to budding filmmakers and I was happy to share it.
 
The reason I write this is that, this morning, the sense of knowing, (as minor as that knowing may be), was brought firmly to my attention.
 
To tell the story, my lady grabbed the bowl from the breakfast I had made her, and she took it into the kitchen sink as was scrubbing and scrubbing. When I realized what she was doing I told her. “You have to let it soak.” She’s a bit stubborn, so she dismissed what I said, and kept scrubbing. Of course, what she was doing didn’t work.  Like I said to her, “I do this every day. You have to let the bowl soak.” Finally, realizing what I said was true, she squirted the bowl with some Dawn and begin to let it soak.
 
How much, how often do you listen to someone else? Do you feel you are the Knower of All Things, or do you realize that you may not know it ALL? If you do not agree with what a person is saying, do you immediately dismiss their words, even though they may have done what you are trying to do many more times than you?
 
Learning involves the ability of you turning off your ego. It requires that you take the time to listen. Even if you do not instantly agree with what someone is saying, by listening, you may be presented with a new understating of that Some Thing. But, you must listen to what they have to say to do that.  Do you?
 
I see this all the time in the martial arts. People who have followed their tradition for a long time become very focused on ONLY that tradition, believing that it is the BEST. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. But, the people who operate from this mindset refuse to let new knowledge come in. They know it all. So, why listen to anyone else?
 
It’s my belief that you really need to keep an open mind. Yeah, it may be something as simply as being told you need to let the blow soak before you scrub it. Or, something much bigger. But, if you stop listening, you stop learning. Do you really want to stop learning? Do you really know everything?