Three logs of "Thoughts" feels like an out-of-trend problem, but anyways.
Today my granny told me to stop teaching my little one difficult things, when
I told my son boys have XY genes and girls have XX genes. I remember she was
also a bit annoyed when I explained to him why it isn't always wrong to cross
the road when the pedestrian light is red. There are quite a few more times.
I always think about learning. I also think about how others learn. As a
techie type, when I first got involved into presentations and meetings, I was
always being told that my explanations were too difficult for normies. I
struggled for quite a while to be honest, because to me, explainations without
details didn't sound complete. It took quite some time for me to understand
that not everyone needs details, or more precisely, cares about them.
Over the time, I think I learned a bit. Can't explain how but I learned to
shorten the replies or just answer with the most typical scenario, a bit like
how AI picks the choice with highest confidence level as the answer, when it
has probably tens if not hundreds of more possible answers. Of course there
are people who will think and ask more questions, but most of them simply were
not interested in verifying the answers.
That was a long time ago and I thought it was the way to communicate to non-
technical people, until one time I had a meeting with a group of scientists,
and one of them asked about DMZ. Occationally, I would be surprised to hear
some IT terms and knowledges that I wouldn't expect to be mentioned by some
non-techies.
I started to think why. Like even if it is some critical information for work,
they have absolute right to delegate it to IT people. I realised that "normie"
is some product from "normal people" underestimating "normal people". People,
regardless of profession, can learn as good as anyone. This matches with what
I believed myself. I began to think that giving short but technical answers
isn't fundamentally wrong, nor mentioning a couple technical terms like SQL
query, Java, responsive design, etc.
Of course there are people who are very sensitive about being blasted with
techie, nerdy knowledges. I had a colleague who was very concerned when I told
him about a container image. Before hearing that the only step is to double
click on a batch file, he has already started to voice out his concerns about
how not technical he is. I was quite happy when I heard from him that he has
modified the batch file to make it work the way he likes.
I also quite often see people, who said they are not working in IT industry,
to be able to root Android, patch this and that, write shell scripts, manage
Linux servers, etc. I believe these are proofs that "IT stuffs" are not
exclusive to "IT people". I understand depending on the experience level, one
can be too overwhelmed when an expert tries to explain something in scholar
ways. It applies to photography, design, cooking, even making coffee. But if
one wants to learn, they can.
I think this is the same for my child. Going through a red light when driving
is no good, but what's the point to tell him that it is absolutely wrong to
cross the road on a red pedestrian light, when it isn't uncommon to see people
doing it? It may be a bit too early for him to know what means by good faith
and common sense, but that doesn't mean it is too early for him to hear about
it. Sometimes the kid could actually say something mature, and it always amaze
me that children are indeed learning machines.
A long while ago, I was once really frustrated because I thought I would never
be able to catch up with older people on some very specific knowledge, say C
or kernel hacking. I still don't really think that I could catch up with the
very knowledgeable people I often find on forums and places, but far less
frustrated. I got to a point that I can start telling younger people I am old.
The "time advantage" that I once regarded as a worldly unfair handicap for
younger people doesn't seem to hold true for myself. In my learning plan, I
still have C, serial programming, USB, more Bluetooth, microcontrollers then
hopefully RISC-V, and definitely more BSD knowledge. See? Very ashamed so
that I once told my son, when he refused to do his homework, that anybody can
go in a blink from 4 years old to 40 years old doing nothing.
I think this is the neat part. I have come to a point that I think I can tell
when a problem is due to lack of experience, be it myself or others. But that
literally means that for younger people, what they need to do is simply to
gain the experience. It is always surprising when I look at CV type of self
introductions from fresh graduates or junior workers. It's like they have lots
of personal projects, some even invented something, have their own companies,
knows loads of new technologies, etc. I know some of those could be simply a
way of adding more contents into the resume by having a better description on
a simple achievement, but still I will be interested in knowing. I just can be
older and useless. And even more respect to the more senior people who know
the ins and outs of something, for it isn't a guarantee but fruit of life-long
continuous learning.
Knowing all these actually makes me feel happier. And I am happy to overwhelm
my son with "difficult" things, as I believe he is always learning.
