Over the past 9 years, some more active than others, I have been on a personal journey to learn everything I can about the history, cultures, and cuisines of the world. I particularly love how dramatically all three are intertwined. Whenever I score a good regional cookbook I devour it it cover-to-cover as one might a novel or a pan of brownies. I love watching hosts travel to different countries showing off the unique customs each region has to offer, and I find myself rewinding again and again, Googling the translation of a phrase, Wiki-ing the origins of an ingredient mentioned, or diving into more depth about a political action that may have taken place in the area. Then there is just my kitchen. I have some beets and some chicken livers. What can I do with these? What if I lived in Eastern Europe, what might I cook then? Google, Google, Google…. and deeper, and deeper, and deeper I spiral until I have, kid-you-not, 42 windows open. “Just shut some down.” “Oh you did not just suggest….?!” Each and every one of those windows is a special gem, hand written, and specially directed down a path as part of my particular fate. There is no stumbling upon here, people. I know what they “say” the internet was created for, but the truth is that it was created specifically… for… me! Everyone of those tabs deserves my full, undivided attention until the finality of said video or article.
The problem lay in trying to both pull oneself back out of the black hole, and on the flip side, trying to find a point at which you’ve learned enough and can, and now should, use the knowledge acquired for it’s purpose. The real issue is the requirement of “stopping learning.” I love learning! I love learning new facets and building a broader image in my mind of a subject, and the more you learn the more you understand that there is still more to learn. I don’t want to stop that! If I can’t or don’t, however, utilize what I have actually learned, have I really learned anything at all? After all, the best test of a person’s knowledge of a subject is their ability to teach it to someone else. Simply put, ‘sharing is caring’ and if I ever plan to get my history/culture/cuisine/ingredient/cookbook/resource published I need to actually utilize all that I’ve been learning in the form of my own constructed thoughts and writing, and own the fact that I am otherwise simply an armchair adventuring, internauting, professional student and not indeed an actively aspiring author.
This being said, it will be my ongoing goal to add small articles to this site sharing some of the things I have been learning. It should both help my own authoring practices, but also, hopefully, someone will find it interesting to read along the way.
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