Spotty

If you have taken any amount of time to read posts in either our Genuinely Faux farm blog or the GFF Postal History blog, you just might have come to an opinion or two about me as a writer.  Some of those opinions could possibly be something like "how does he know so much about that particular thing?"  Other thoughts regarding me and my writing might be "how is it that he doesn't seem to know much about this other thing?"

Well, first of all, because I have offered up so much of myself, writing and publishing almost daily, it means I am giving anyone who reads this material ample opportunity to form opinions about me.  Some of them might be accurate, others might simply be the wrong conclusion based on the evidence given.  And, since the farm blog has been going since 2009, you might also want to consider that your opinion might have to be revised for whatever version of me happens to be in your sights at the time.  

After all, I do try to learn and improve - which means I am not a stationary target.

At one point in time, I had extensive knowledge about heirloom tomato varieties and characteristics.  This was partly because we were actively attempting to discover the best varieties for our farm and our growing practices.  So, I dove deep into that topic.

Now, I still have a decent amount of knowledge about heirlooms and heirloom tomatoes.  But, like most of us, some of that expertise has not been exercised in the same way.  So, I don't have everything on automatic recall anymore.  At least I have notes and writing from years before that I can reference and refresh my memory!

As I was thinking about this topic, I remembered the bafflement one of my Computer Science professors at Luther College had regarding my test results in his classes.  You see, I had this tendency to answer some of the questions with extensive and accurate details, including examples.... and then I left other questions blank.

Perhaps it was partly a time management thing, I'll grant you that possibility.  And it is something I've worked on over the years.  But, the truth of the matter is that my knowledge was spotty because it illustrated how I like to learn.  And it shows my dislike of trying to speak/write about something where I don't have acceptable (according to my standards) competence.

If I'm going to learn about it, I really want to do my best to understand it.  I want to be able to explain what I understand so others can understand it too.  And that's where the time management issue came into play.  

There simply isn't enough time to build skill and knowledge for that level of competence on everything that comprises any reasonably complex topic.  There never was.  There never will be.

As a result, I would run into a question that I hadn't really dug into.  Rather than writing an answer that I felt was not a good one (and waste the professor's time), I would just make sure I made it clear how well I understood the material I had gotten to.

Of course, this strategy didn't apply to foundational topics that you needed to learn in order to get to the really neat stuff.  I understood that I had to get a handle on those things.  But once I began to get exposure to a wider expanse of topics I would become enthralled with some of it and dive right in.  To some extent, this is still me.  I'll have those basics down just fine.  Then there will be a whole bunch of topics that I am comfortable with, while some "next-door" topics might not get much of a look.

Be patient.  I'll get there someday - I hope.  But until then, you'll just have to deal with a person who is not perfect and whose knowledge can be spotty at times.  The difference is that I usually have some idea of what those areas are and I try not to pretend that I do know that stuff.  I'd rather maintain my integrity and talk about things I feel I can represent fairly well.  All the while knowing that there is so much more to learn.