Some Much to Learn, and Only One Lifetime to Learn it All

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Pierre C Belarge

Pierre C Belarge

Senior Member
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Westchester County, New York
I have been in the industry close to 3 decades, I have been around this site and a lot others since '03. I have been all over the web gathering information. I go to many meetings every year. I attend classes. I attend seminars. I teach, and I am exposed to lots and lots of questions.

Yet every day I am confronted with questions I cannot answer...
I am starting to think a lifetime will not be enough time. ;):D
 
Agreed,

I learn new things about this industry every day.

(Most of the time it is right here on this forum.;):))

Chris
 
let's go back to rotary telephones, party lines, and knob and tube wiring!:grin: Or if you don't want that, quichyerbellyachin.:)
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
I am starting to think a lifetime will not be enough time. ;):D
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This, to me, is the paradox of trying to derive meaning from opposites ( + & - , in the case of electricity). There are always more opposites to imagine and understand.

To me, meaning is in the whole.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
I have been in the industry close to 3 decades, I have been around this site and a lot others since '03. I have been all over the web gathering information. I go to many meetings every year. I attend classes. I attend seminars. I teach, and I am exposed to lots and lots of questions.

Yet every day I am confronted with questions I cannot answer...
I am starting to think a lifetime will not be enough time. ;):D
Click to expand...

Pierre I couldn't agree more I don't want to date myself but when I got my journeymans license in 1972 I thought I knew everything. How wrong I was I've been to seminars, classes, in the code everyday since then and still find that there is so much to learn.
 
The older we get, the LESS we know?

The older we get, the LESS we know?

When we were teenagers 14-19 years old... we knew more about the world than our partents ever did. I was one of them.

When I started in the electrical trade at age 20, I was an apprentice under a very knowledgable journeyman. I became a "sponge" and everyday learned more and more. After (4) years, tested and became a journeyman electrician in my State. My '20s were my learning years, very moldable, and impressionable.

At age 30... thought I knew it all, and done it all.

At age 40, Migrated into manufacturing, and found out, that I knew ALOT, about a little.

Now, nearing 50, I keep my eyes open, and my mouth shut. I learn new things EACH, and EVERY DAY.

I enjoy, and have FUN each day at work. I have never SEEN electricity, but they tell me it IS there.
 
It's definitely there. I've felt it with my own hands. :grin:

The fact that I can never know everything is a good lot of why this trade appeals to me. If I had some job a monkey could do and I know everything within a couple months or couple of years I'd be bored out of my tree and very miserable. On the very far off chance that I ever do know everything then I will hang up my tools and find something else to do.
 
I guess I was very lucky, because one of the things my Dad really pushed into my brain was never think you know it all, when you do you have closed your mind off to learning anything else, in life as well as our jobs we must always keep an open mind, and watch out when we try to tell someone they don't need to tell you because you already know it, because that is the start of closing ones mind from learning anything else.

and I don't mind dating myself (not that I'm bad company:D) But I got started in the electrical trade in "74", working for a EC friend of my Dads, in Miami, and most of what I learned back then (well what of it I can remember) wont even apply in todays trade, so we are in an ever evolving trade, and unless we keep updating our knowledge it will pass us by.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
I have been in the industry close to 3 decades, I have been around this site and a lot others since '03. I have been all over the web gathering information. I go to many meetings every year. I attend classes. I attend seminars. I teach, and I am exposed to lots and lots of questions.

Yet every day I am confronted with questions I cannot answer...
I am starting to think a lifetime will not be enough time. ;):D
Click to expand...

I completely agree and it's humbling to read the responses from the experienced electricians who have replied. Now I can cringe even more when I'm at the local Big Box store and watch some lost soul loading up a cart with electrical goodies and ever present on the top of the pile is the "Home Wiring Simplified" book..........ugh!
 
Unfortunately with the NEC there is often no correct answer but rather an interpretation of certain articles. We seem to never get the correct answers like black or white. There are interpretation problems long before the new codes are even enacted.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
......... We seem to never get the correct answers like black or white. ........
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Seems like that applies to all areas of life.

I saw in a recent Newsweek article about Viet Nam... showed president Lyndon Johnson alone at a big conference table with his glasses off and his head in his hand and the caption was his quote, "It's not doing the right thing that's hard... it's knowing what's right."

Also I heard about Johnson, he said being president was "like being a jackass in a hailstorm... all you could do was stand there and take it."

At work , and sometimes on this forum I often feel like a jackass in a hailstorm. :)
 
Dennis that is so true several years ago I was at an IAEI seminar with a code panel answering hand in questions. It was interesting the panel had three members of code making panel 5 and a question was asked about grounding all three members had a little different meaning of the intent. I went away from the seminar somewhat confused as why they couldn't agree, I can't remember the question but it was a new change that they had voted on. It seems there is a different answer to every question which makes it more important to keep your mind open and learn every day.
 
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