Tag Archives: influence

Seeking Intellectual Freedom

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Few people may know this, but at one point in my life I was seriously considering a career in academia. For six months in the year 2005 I was an MBA student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. To pay for my tuition and provide some living money, I worked as graduate assistant. I taught several seminars on computer basics, proctored exams, did some academic research, etc. I loved it. At least, I loved everything except some of the insane hoops we had to jump through. I was initially accepted into the program with the provision I had to pass calculus within the first six months. I never had to take calculus in my undergrad college. I thought it strange I had to take calculus when I had zero interest in doing statistical analysis or accounting. Even back then, I knew a lot of accounting was going to eventually be taken over by computer software and AI. Needless to say, my bosses weren’t impressed when I had to drop calculus at midterm but was doing quite well as a teacher and researcher. I eventually was fired from my grad assistant job because of my grades, namely in calculus. I was offered the chance to stay in the program but without the job. Since I had no way to pay for the program, I walked away. The thing was I had zero interest in statistical analysis. I really just wanted to teach, namely personal finance, investing, and economics.

My economics classes were my favorite classes in undergrad. Our instructor started his career working for an agricultural commodities broker firm. In short, he helped farmers find buyers for their crops and food processing facilities find farmers who were selling their crops. Agricultural commodity broker, the linking of sellers and buyers, was actually John Rockefeller’s first major break before he built his first oil refinery. His biggest customer was the Union Army during the Civil War. So my economics instructor had real world experience before he became a teacher. I had a banking and investing instructor in college who was a licensed CPA and I think a fiduciary (think financial advisor who makes money through hourly consulting fees and not sales commissions). My business law instructor taught only business law as he was a full-time lawyer as his day job. My accounting instructors were all licensed CPAs. My management instructors were all small business owners before they went into academia. As far as I could tell, every single one of them took a pay cut when they went to teach at my small college.

Since I had been inspired to learn more on my own while in college, I continued my education after I left college. Best thing college ever did was 1) Teach me how to learn for myself, 2) Teach me how to form my own conclusions, 3) Be able to find good advice from people even if I disagreed with a significant amount of their other thoughts, 4) Not kill my natural love for learning. I eventually learned how to ‘read between the lines’ on my own, but can we honestly expect 21 year old people to truly know how to spot liars and frauds with true accuracy?

Overall I value my intellectual freedom more than anything else.

Death of Family Members While Being Mentally Ill and Thoughts on My Own Mortality

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Besides my family and one college friend, I haven’t kept in strong contact with most of my friends the last couple weeks.  My best friend’s mother died a few weeks ago and I haven’t talked to her much.  I decided to let her do what was needed and not bother her much.  She probably wasn’t much in the mood for talking the last few weeks.  I haven’t had a parent die yet.  All of my grandparents and a couple uncles have died.  But I wasn’t really torn up by their deaths as I was just happy that such people had lived.  At my grandparents’ funerals, the immediate family was mostly spending the time retelling stories of the cool and funny things they did during their lives.  We weren’t crying that much but instead were celebrating their lives.  There was almost as much laughter as crying at my grandfather’s funeral as the immediate family were retelling stories of my grandfather’s jokes and funny things he did during his life.  And my last grandmother to pass away was quite sharp and aware until she had a stroke about two weeks before she died.  But she was in her late nineties and had real bad arthritis to where she could barely walk.  She had said for the last few years of her life that she wasn’t afraid of dying and that she was ready at any time.  I think that maybe she was sad seeing most of her friends and family die over the years.  Fortunately I was able to handle the grandparents’ funerals without any flare ups of my mental illness.  I was a pall bearer for both my grandmothers.

I guess that as I have now crossed into my late thirties, I’m beginning to think about my own mortality a little.  This has been especially true the last few months as I’m getting more unexplainable aches and pains and I can’t lift as heavy as items as I could previously.  It also doesn’t help that schizophrenics, statistically speaking, have shorter life spans than mentally healthy people.  If I were to die prematurely, I think I want to donate my body to science.  I figure that something good should come from my having schizophrenia effect my mind and destroy my career.

I’m sorry for sounding morbid with this entry.  But I have been thinking about how several people who have influenced me in my young years are now dying off.  Even my own parents aren’t in the greatest health.  But I guess they are in their late sixties.  I’m thirty seven and that would have made me an elderly person in the Stone Age. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter how long you live as long as you make the most of the days you have.