i hate learning new things

most people "love learning new things" just like they "love walking on the beach at sunset" or whatever else people say to make themselves seem interesting.

i hate learning new things.

first, there is the introduction period, say like, in a new job. i'm excited, i'm happy, i just got this bitchen new job that i'm pretty sure i can do. in fact, getting it has made me feel like some kind of superwoman. i'm on a high for days. i get all hyped up thinking, "i've fooled them again!"

and then "training" sets in.

for someone like me, who is either a)self-taught, especially in academics or b)painfully stressed out by the knee-jerk reaction against a nasty instruction style formed at an early age...and/or both, "training" is a horrible, painful nightmare to go through.

fortunately by now, i've gone through enough "training" from my myriad of jobs, that i can kind of recognize the headache as it takes hold, rather than go through a freakin' breakdown before understanding what is happening, the way i did in my 20s.

it sucks, nevertheless.

and somehow i don't think the training nightmare is going to hit me again! maybe that detail will become apparent by the time i retire.

guy asked me, "why do you hate learning so much?"

my immediate answer is most likely the most honest, and that is, "The Pressure."

when i was a kid and i had to ask for help with homework, i had to ask my dad. why not mom, who was so much kinder, and empathetic? she "doesn't remember," as i was told at the time. SO, it was dad, for any problem at school, which quickly produced five thousand extra personal problems for every word problem he screamed at me.

if i didn't figure out whatever academic issue i was having immediately after asking for help, then the instruction was yelled. with extra words thrown in along the lines of "WHY CAN'T YOU DO THIS?!"

"thanks, dad!" because even though it feels pathetic to blame adult problems on one's parents, it is irrevocably, usually, their faults. until we fix it ourselves as adults, that is. how long does that take?

i'm still trying to fix it. today, i did not cry when my creative director asked me in a confrontational way why i'd "say that", over and over like a round of bullets. but i still got so stunned and put on the spot, that i could only give her a satisfactory answer 2 times out of 3. it really doesn't help that i don't actually know the correct grammatical terms to defend why i write or don't write something, or that she was on percocet for toe surgery, this plays against me again, when i can't perfectly answer the "why" question, right away.

learning. it's a stick in the nose.