268 - pack your bags with education 🧠🎒🛍️👜
an unhinged try to convince my future kids to get EDUCATED
Dear Future Kids (and somewhat Past Vince),
The only reason I'll be sending you this is if you have continued to whine at me about 'why do we need to learn algebra in school since I'm going to study lawwww' and/or 'why do I need to learn how to write a language analysis since I won't have to do it when I'm a doctor???' and/or 'can I just focus on maths and science instead of english and music so that I can go be a 10x engineer at a high-paying tech firm OR focus on research that will get me a Nobel prize in Chemistry and/or Physics OR a MacArthur Genius Grant OR Fields Prize OR [insert other equivalent award here]?''.
First off, good job for selecting high-paying careers and prestigious STEM awards that will make your ancestors proud. Any other choice would have been frowned upon and thus bring dishonor to our family.
Secondly, you don't even know whether you're gonna get into those things so stop being cringe. You're young and there's so much time before you even know you're going to do those things, so let's just focus on where are right now, okay?
School.
NB: I don't actually know what you're going to enjoy or like by the time you read this, so unfortunately the examples are gonna be real lame. Sorry about that. You got a lame dad - live with it :D
It's hard to realise why you're going to school while you're there. You never asked to be sent to school, but there are lots of big reasons that you should go.
Unfortunately, a lot of those reasons boil down to 'because I told you to' or 'because society told me to tell you so'.
Since you probably ain't gonna like hearing that as answer, I'll be selfish and just tell you why I want you guys to learn things.
I want you to fill your bags with education! Metaphorical bags, anyway - like...your mind bags. Your brain bags. Education bags!
Hm. That doesn't make sense. You'd think after 5 years of doing this I should be good at metaphors but I really amn't.
TOO BAD! I love Google Slides and that's where all these illustrations comes from so suck it. We keep on going.
Look, it comes down to two main things:
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Fill up your bags so you can do cooler things
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The reason you learn one thing, then another thing, then another thing, is so that they all come together to build into one really BIG cool thing.
- Like....ingredients in a delicious salad. You layer the ingredients, the condiments, the sauces - all of it kinda okay in their own right, but then becoming something so DELICIOUS when put together. You learn how flavours come together, how to cut and slice things the right way, and then the best way to present it; so many things to learn just to make a nice, simple salad.
- More specifically for school, the more math you learn, the more that you can work out if people are ripping you off, or if you're getting what you've been promised. What's the fair amount that you should be getting as an allowance? Are mum and dad ripping you off? (no, we'll be forcing you to learn math to make sure)
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At the moment, you might think that a lot of the stuff you're learning is boring, gray, and not useful, and more importantly, won't be useful in the future, but there's so many cool things that happen in the combination of stuff that you don't know about.
- For example, a language analysis might seem lame, but those cool movie essays on YouTube use that kind of analysis in their videos; or,
- If a Nigerian prince emails you asking for bitcoin, you can also use that kind of analysis to understand what kind of tricks they're using on you (and if you know about bitcoin, you can use that knowledge too); or,
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You like games? I'm sure you do because I'll be making you play Dynasty Warriors with me 'cos I loved that game when I was your age (i.e. any age over 5 years old); game development needs so much math to work out how to make cool computer graphics and program stuff in realistic ways. That stuff is hard, but knowing how to do it is pretty much like ✨magic✨ if you don't do your HOMEWORK.
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- In summary: Get to doing cooler stuff by going through the boring stuff first.
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Things will become cooler because you understand them.
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It's much more fun to enjoy something when you know more - for example, if you know how hard chess is, then when you watch chess players, you can appreciate their effort more. Or, if you watch someone play tennis, you can appreciate it more if you've actually tried it. Sure, it seems boring now, but it's something that helps you appreciate when other things get found out!
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If you don't know:
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If you know:
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The more you learn things, the more tools you have to learn new things which you may not have known about, and the more you practice them, the more people will trust you can do them, and let you in on even cooler stuff!
- For example, once you learn the basics of how to play the piano, that helps you you learn more skills, and the more you practice, the more you'll have the skills to play the more famous stuff, the cool stuff, the interesting stuff, the stuff that will make people go WOW.
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- In summary: I want you to appreciate the world in new and different ways by understanding them better...which comes from SCHOOL. and EDUCATION. and filling up your brain bags. (yesss brought it back).
Anyway, if any of this doesn't make sense, just let me know and I'll tell you to just keep studying.
Love you <3
Note: here's one of the BrainGuy outtakes I ended up with but thought it would be too weird to use. Ah well. Perhaps for another newsletter:
Chat soon!
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
📋 A Singular Question
New segment for y'all - we're taking advantage of the SURVEY functionality of this tool now I've upgraded!! They're all single select surveys (I haven't found out how to do multi-select yet) so just choose what you like the most.
The normal weekly / when I feel like it posts will still be available for everyone, but just looking to see if I put in a premium tier to help pay for the costs of the newsletter, what y'all would want in return! No free lunches here :D
If you have questions on the options, or if you have any other ideas, please reply to this email and let me know!
Also I'm playing with the segment name so also open to feedback on that too :D
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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In the Mood for Love - 4.75/5 stars - an amazing film that I took far too long to get around to! The romance!! The unbearable yearning!!! Maggie Cheung in a cheongsam and Tony Leung smoking - hot and attractive and in their primes!!!! Wong Kar Wai at the height of his power!!!!! Main thought from my Letterboxd review, though:
I've never wanted to smoke more in my whole life
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Savanna African Restaurant - pretty chill, pretty nice. I don't get to eat much of this kinda food, so I thought it was cool? I got a goat curry which was spicy but delicious :D
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox - I really loved this piece, as it serves as kind of a love letter to small corners of the internet that make their own little gardens (like me, here!). It's such a wonderful way of thinking about this kind of writing, but also content in general!
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I tasted Honda's Spicy Rodent-Repelling Tape - people be doing people things
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One Minute Park - in lieu of going outside...take a Vitamin D and maybe just adventure through some parks around the world?