The world doesn’t stop growing once you stop learning.
After 20 years of formal classroom public education — I was exhausted.
What else could I learn?! I spent the first 18 years of my formal ed in the typical way — in a room with 29 other similar-aged peers, all facing toward the front of the classroom, while an older & more experienced member of society transfused their explicit knowledge in our general direction.
I say this education was directed “towards us” and not “to us” because we were not always receptive participants. Some of us had attention problems, had difficulty relating to the material, had a hard time being interested in the subject-matter without an implied use-case or real-world relevancy.
I never, in my life, had difficulty learning. But hundreds of times — I had difficulty caring.
The problem with (mostly underfunded & overcrowded) education is that they rarely discern between the two. Due to my intense desire to talk in class, and create a dialogue, rather than passively sitting in a chair for eight hours, I was oftentimes lumped in with kids who had honest (mostly undiagnosed) issues such as dyslexia. Did I have an “attention deficit”? I don’t think so — I was perfectly able to pay attention to the jokes I was concocting in my head to make my fellow classmates laugh. I was even better at paying attention to my sick roasts of the substitute teacher. I think it’s time we stop saying the kids who can’t sit still for eight hours have an attention deficit — and start acknowledging that the kids who ARE able to do so have a creativity and exploratory deficit. Quick — someone get them a quad-shot Americano.
Why am I blabbing about all this? BECAUSE! I’m 32 years old — I have a bachelor’s degree that took me five years to wrangle, and a master’s degree — which I earned after four years in the “real world” — and I feel like I’m just warming up.
The lucky part about not paying attention in history class growing up, is that history doesn’t change.
Not only does it not change —our knowledge of it improves. Not only does our knowledge of it improve, but I now have access to millions of historical interpretations and recounts thanks to the internet and content from mixed-mediums (such as this one). (this was always part of 8-year-old me’s plan — he knew the textbook monopolies were flawed and had a bias toward North American superiority).
Last night, I attended an intimate Q&A info session at Upright Citizens Brigade with Adam Mckay (Writer/Director/Producer — Vice, The Big Short, Anchorman, etc.). It was $10. He spoke, and took questions, for over two hours. This was more insightful than what I gathered in the entirety of film school back in 2005 — and I received a $18,990 discount. I was learning from, and asking questions to (of course I was the first question — because I’m annoying like that), an Academy Award/Golden Globe-winning filmmaker.
I can’t list all of the continued-learning I’ve done since becoming a real-life grownup — I don’t keep a personal database for that. All I know is that it is constant and comes in a variety of forms — from the simple and free: reading newspapers, listening (and working in) public radio, podcasting, watching (and being a subject of) documentaries, and going to lectures and book talks. To the more complex — such as formalized classes and group seminars.
Here is a list of some of the classes I have taken in the last six months since my full-time job came to a close:
- Improv: Upright Citizens Brigade (Hollywood)
- Introduction to Improv: Second City (Toronto), The Groundlings (Los Angeles)
- Storytelling for Influence: IDEO U (Online)
- Storytelling: Upright Citizens Brigade (Hollywood)
- Sketch Writing: Upright Citizens Brigade (Hollywood)
- Acting Masterclass: Kevin Spacey* (*we now know he is a creep and this class has been discontinued)
- Comedy Masterclass: Steve Martin* (*still wonderful)
- Voiceover/Voice Acting: Marc Cashman
- Acting classes & audits: Stella Adler Academy of Acting, The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, Howard Fine Acting & Voice Studio, Playhouse West, Sean Whalen Acting & Audition Classes, Vocal Coaching with Chawa Lilith
Even writing this down was exhausting — and I know I missed several. I know it looks like a lot, and you’re probably thinking, “Craig! You can only afford to do this because you’re a loser with no friends who doesn’t party!” and you’re absolutely right. About half of these classes cost me (a good amount of) money. But half of them did not — or were optional and part of a larger paid package. Also, although expensive, they were but a fraction of what I paid for formalized education. I definitely got a better bang-for-my-buck with these classes than I did in higher-ed.
This then leads to the discernment between tacit knowledge & formal/explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the type that the person on Facebook, who didn’t go to college, lists as “school of hard knocks”. Although it’s a bit trashy and trite — it’s totally legit. I would trust the dude who repairs broken windshields on the south side of Chicago with giving me good life advice over the Silicon Valley prodigy who has been coding nonstop since they were 13-years-old. But one of them is probably making $28,000 a year and one of them is probably earning closer to $280,000. Value in a capitalist economy does not directly correlate with knowledge or intelligence — and being well-rounded is definitely undervalued in current society.
As you can see by my recent classes — I am attempting to become more well-versed in the arts & entertainment industry. Specifically, the content side of entertainment. I have spent more than a decade working in policy, journalism, government, and nonprofits. I also have formed partnerships between small business owners, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, government officials, startups, technologists, artists, educators, and more. After coming from a working-class upbringing — I think entertainment is literally the only thing left for me to explore. And I’m loving it!
At the end of the day — all industries converge and the work is nearly identical. Hollywood filmmaking and the county carnival look a lot different on paper (and one is slightly more glamorous — the carnival life of course #CarnieLife), but at the end of the day, most of the admin work ends up being pretty much the same — and the goal of producing a desirable product that people will pay for is the necessary process.
Some of my favorite things on the subject:
- NPR Hidden Brain: Bullshit Jobs: How Meaningless Work Wears Us Down
- TED Talk Elizabeth Gilbert: Your Elusive Creative Genius
“in the middle of writing “Eat, Pray, Love,” and I fell into one of those sort of pits of despair that we all fall into when we’re working on something and it’s not coming and you start to think this is going to be a disaster, the worst book ever written. Not just bad, but the worst book ever written…I’m going to keep writing anyway because that’s my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job.”
Now get out there and keep learnin’!
Craig Wiroll is an ice cream (frozen custard) aficionado from the Midwest. He is the author of 26 unpublished books that mysteriously burned in a barn fire in 2014. He has-been a reality television “star”, game show failure, Asian elephant rehabilitator, waterfall repairman, two-time garlic eating champion, and also worked at Pizza Hut and The White House.
He lives alone with nobody — oftentimes out of the back of his Prius.
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