Being forced to learn useless facts

I love learning things. In fact, there are few things I like more. Expanding my base of knowledge stands for progress, and progress is awesome.

I especially like learning by doing, i.e. gaining professional experience, and I enjoy looking things up that I need to translate a specific text. This is information I actually need to do my work, and therefore useful. But I also like learning stuff just because it interests me, without any immediate practical application, and this could be nearly anything, as I have a wide variety of interests. It could be about cheese.

What I HATE, however, despite my broad interest, is learning, even studying (thus spending even more time on it) things others decide is somehow important for me, while I strongly disagree. In some cases, it isn't AT ALL important for me to know. At the moment I need to study tiny little facts for an exam, like what a 'flutter on the turf' means. Apparently this is a small bet on a horse race. Or which museums are located in which Dutch cities. I'M STUDYING TRANSLATION! WHY DO I NEED TO KNOW THIS STUFF?! It is so ridiculous, my whole being seems to rebel against this knowledge gaining access to my brain.

Some things I need to study now, however, I would actually be interested in learning, if they hadn't been forced on me by a crappy organisation that seems to know nothing about the actual practice of translators. One such question: what types of British beer are there? (Ale, bitter, lager, stout, mild, cider and shandy.) Beer! Great! Tell me more! Normally this would be my reaction to being offered information about beer. But now, it is being forced on me for a reason I cannot grasp. Even if I ever got the opportunity to translate a text on British beers, I would look this up on Wikipedia, and I would be able to translate the text. Would take me only a couple of minutes, and only if I ever needed that particular knowledge. Now I need to study the most trivial little facts, even about beer, that I will most probably never need to know to do my job. And even if I ever did, I would have forgotten them already, and I would need to look them up anyway. So nothing is gained by me having to study this now, making it a complete and utter waste of time.

I seems quite obvious I cannot cope with people telling me what to do, with them deciding for me what is important, especially when they are not even close to hitting the mark. The people who decide what I must study for my exams are supposed to be translators who know what the actual work entails, and still they figure I need to stuff my head full of knowledge I will never use. It enrages me.

Something else I cannot handle is my precious time being wasted. The people imposing these tasks on me waste a lot of this time, and fill my head with facts that, once in my brain, cry out for release because they aren't wanted there. The old residents of my brain, like Genghis Khan, who is definitely wanted there because he is cool as shit and I want to know all about him, will kick their asses out as soon as they are through with the dreadful exam.

But if, about 90 days after the exam (it takes them that long to check 60 short questions), I am informed of my failure (because the useless facts were hard-pressed to climb the thorny wall I built to repel them, and not enough made it across the fiery moat behind it) the resit of the exam will be six months after that, which means Genghis and his horde will have destroyed or expelled every last remnant of uselessness at their leisure by that time, and I will have to study this ridiculousness all over again. And more time will be wasted.

If I manage to control my nearly irresistable impulses to throw my textbooks out the window and repress the involuntary jerking spasms while trying to get this info into my head, I might have a chance of being rid of this absurdity. Genghis would simply refuse and go chop the heads off of those responsible for his torment, but I guess such behaviour would be frowned upon in these times. Such a shame.

Attachments

At some (unhappy) point in my life, I lacked a sense of purpose. I felt I needed to have something in my life to provide this, and for some reason I then seriously considered having children to 'fill the gap' or void that I felt. I thought that maybe this would give me the purpose I was looking for and give me a reason to get up in the morning.

I cannot imagine that person was me! Ironically, I rediscovered my happiness in my freedom - by being free of (most) attachments, not by creating more of them. And I have never felt better. But how long can I keep this up? At some point most of my friends will be married or at least settled down, or even have children. Will I be this guy who will be alone at 40 (which is better than a 40-year-old virgin in any case! :))? Perhaps. I don't know if I would be sorry for this. Chances are I would still be unable to handle too many commitments, and still unwilling to give up my precious freedom. Time will have to tell.

People tend to make 'permanent' commitments to each other ("I love you 4 evah and evah!"), and I have done so as well. I just don't believe in it anymore. Nothing is permanent, and most everything that is not yet broken will be broken at some point. Especially relationships. And what's even worse is a 'broken' relationship with both members plodding along unhappily instead of searching for happiness elsewhere (and they can certainly find it!). It can be very difficult to break off a relationship you know you are not happy in, especially when you have children. For me that's just another reason not to have them. At least not for a long time.

No, I will stay away from anything too 'permanent' for years to come, I figure. When I was younger I never figured myself for someone who would ever have a fear of commitment, but that only shows how much people can change in only a few short years. Of course, this also means I may go through another radical change (or multiple) in my lifetime, so let me just conclude with: you never know what will happen, so just go with the flow.