[His] point was that the only good about having money is 'that you can ransom yourself back from the system,' continues Hillerman. "What you've got to do, he said, is find a way to get your basic needs met doing something you like to do, so you don't have to buy your time back and thus don't have to have a lot of money."College is often referred to as "a four year vacation from the realities of life" (er, now five years...or six...) and perhaps part of the reason is because it was test-driven, not time-driven.
--Catherine Walsh quoting novelist Tony Hillerman
Nothing felt more humanizing than college after my high school career at McDonald's, which was completely time-driven. Any minute you were on the clock had to be spent doing something, even if it was the sort of "make work" that made the CCC look like they were curing cancer by comparison: "I don't care if you mopped the floor ten minutes ago," our boss would say, "it's about looking busy."
At college I was not a slave to the clock, I was simply a slave to the work and because there were times when there was more clock than work this seemed a good deal. If I finished a test early I could go read at the library. That is the glamour of college; you could arrange your schedule. You could work assiduously every day or save it up and pull a few all-nighters. You owned the work, but also the time.
These thoughts were inspired by Darwin Catholic's post which mentions Lydia's post at WWTW about corporations requiring development plans.
True story: A month ago my boss said that we all needed development plans since they were being enforced now.
I said flippantly: "how about I read a classic novel? That's broadening. That's development." I told him I read far too much non-fiction and need more liberal arts in my reading diet.
Surprisingly (or not, because he started out as an English major in college) he enthusiastically agreed and we discussed which one to choose.
Well my boss later told a co-worker about my "unusual" development plan, and that co-worker ran and told my bosses' boss, and that boss said "no way is that going to fly".
Sigh.
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