{"id":6714,"date":"2025-01-26T14:48:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T21:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=6714"},"modified":"2025-01-26T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T21:48:15","slug":"looking-for-the-dull-spots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2025\/01\/looking-for-the-dull-spots\/","title":{"rendered":"looking for the dull spots"},"content":{"rendered":"There was a Japanese language professor at my junior college. He\u2019d been there a long time. I didn\u2019t\u2019 take his classes, but I was friends with his son.<br \/><br \/>In my mind, the professors were high above me. It was hard to imagine such a rarified person could be as familiar as someone\u2019s dad. <br \/><br \/>I went to that school ravenous for the secrets it could teach me. I wanted to go deeper and increase my skills and expertise. <br \/><br \/>I assumed the professors also wanted to go deeper, and they had found a way to make learning pay them a living.<br \/><br \/>I was surprised to learn\u2014second hand\u2014that he found teaching the same lessons tedious.<br \/><br \/>As I look back now I can understand that professor better. I have had a chance to get more education and experience. <br \/><br \/>I\u2019m still hungry for it though.  That\u2019s part of the drive that keeps me moving. <br \/><br \/>I\u2019m about the age of the professor now. I can see that it\u2019s harder to learn when I have to be my own teacher.<br \/><br \/>It\u2019s easy to double my skills when I start with nothing. <br \/><br \/>After I have achieved a critical mass of expertise, the new things can be tucked into a framework. They are manageable.<br \/><br \/>So manageable they might not seem work the effort. <br \/><br \/>Or so small they become insignificant and unimportant. <br \/><br \/>So the hunger for learning gets dull. And so does my life.<br \/><br \/>I am still keen to know, and I have not forgotten my appetite.<br \/><br \/>I can still stretch for the finer point. If I  sharpen the edge of a narrow point of knowledge, I can find satisfaction. Precision and clarity are the new frontier for my well-known territories.<br \/><br \/>A master can review the tools and look for sections to polish. That will keep me moving for a long time.<br \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was a Japanese language professor at my junior college. He\u2019d been there a long time. I didn\u2019t\u2019 take his classes, but I was friends with his son. In my mind, the professors were high above me. It was hard &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2025\/01\/looking-for-the-dull-spots\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6715,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6714\/revisions\/6715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}