Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire
So I recently graduated as an Electrical Engineer. But I hated school all the way, not the learning but the infrastructure. From kindergarten to college everything felt the same and even smelled the same. It’s not that I had bad teachers or a bad environment, I had great teachers and friends all along the way. It’s just that the idea of a conforming to a curriculum and wearing uniforms didn’t agree with me, also some other stuff that I don’t understand yet. But the gist of it is that school was confusing for me because it took stuff I found so interesting and turned it into chores. Ever since I was a kid I loved physics and thought this is what I want to study all my life. But when in eighth grade I started with physics as a subject, I thought how can this be the same physics I fell in love with, watching “A brief history of time”? I knew that eighth grade physics wasn’t going to be as interesting as black holes and spacetime, but there must be a better way to teach the equations of motion. Anyways I kept at it and eventually I was done with it.
All my feelings about the broken education system are summarized in Pink Floyd’s album The Wall. A recurring theme in the album is submission, and the slow transition of a boy entering the educational, industrial machine. The boy first faces opposition from his teachers and he rebels against them, telling them:
We don’t need no education, we don’t need no mind control
Another brick in the wall by Pink Floyd
and the teachers replying:
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.
Another brick in the wall by Pink Floyd
Next the song Comfortably Numb from the same album completely sold me on my idea of what the album was about. In this song are perhaps my favorite Pink Floyd lyrics:
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, out of the corner of my eye, I turned to look and it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now, the child has grown, the dream is gone and I have become comfortably numb.
Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd
In Comfortably Numb the boy now grown seems to have lost hope and is telling us how in childhood there is still some clarity, even if as a fleeting glimpse in the corner his eye. I remember hearing this album and quickly making my mind what the whole thing was about. When really the album is about a rock star named Pink whose father dies in world war two and is building a metaphorical wall around himself. That’s the thing about art I guess, it speaks to people differently. I got hooked on Pink Floyd when I was pretty young mainly because it used to be on my brother’s playlist and copying your big bro is what you do when you don’t have opinion. But it’s good that I did because Pink Floyd is relatable for people who don’t really have an idea what they’re doing.
Writing this blog or story, I decided the title first and any decent writer would tell you that’s a bad idea. But that’s what I think of my situation right now and wanted to elaborate on that. Just graduated so out of the frying pan and into the fire of the real world. Although I just entered the fire, I am starting to come to peace with not having an idea and not knowing. Not having an idea of what’s going on and knowing what to do. That’s because no one’s really got it figured out, they’re just making it up as they go along and that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Do not go gentle into the good night
Rage rage against the dying of the light
Poem by Dylan Thomas
In my next stories I’ll tell you about my experiences working and looking for a job. Later I also plan on writing some programming and linux tutorials and also some tech related stories, being an engineer I kind of have an idea about that too. So stay tuned and follow me.
