Category: Productivity

I had dinner with a former colleague, Ben, last month at a charity golf tournament. I was the event photographer, so I arrived near the end of the tournament for a quick tour of the course, portraits, and dinner photos.

Ben’s second wife, Mary, has a daughter that lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and several children. Between them, Mary’s daughter and her spouse have seven degrees. When Ben first met them, the couple were both working in the university system but rapidly moving to a frontier lifestyle. Now, they’re fully off the grid and teaching others the ways of self-sufficient living that extend to making their own mayonnaise.

“What does homemade mayonnaise taste like?”

“Terrible,” Ben reported and then listed a litany of labor intensive things the pair only make themselves.

“There is no bartering. No trading of services? No one they know that makes better mayo?” I asked.

“No, they make it themselves. I bought some at a store, but they threw it away,” Ben noted.

I think what confounds Ben is that the pair have made such an investment in their education only to spend their hours doing things that are more easily and expertly completed by others.  It’s the sunk cost that irritates him.

I tend to think of division of labor as one of the most wonderful things about modern society because each of us is endowed with different talents and interests. Currency allows us to trade services so that I can give you my labor in exchange for money or for equivalent labor in a field that I do not excel at like masonry, medicine, or mayonnaise making. We both gets things of value completed by experts in their field, and the time spent not learning to poorly build a brick wall can be better spent in leisure or another pursuit of interest. Everyone wins.

But here is another school of thought that says, I can do it better myself no matter what. I don’t understand it, but I don’t have to. I’ll continue to learn new things but rely on experts for those pursuits I have no interest in but still require. Like mayonnaise. I do like a good mayonnaise.

In writing this post, I looked up the state motto of Oregon. It is Alis volat propriis, “She flies with her own wings.” Portlandia, indeed.

I’ve been fascinated by language for a long time. On my way to earning my MA in English, I completed four semesters of German as a graduate student and passed an equivalency exam. This was as close to a real language experience as I ever had. I started to think in German. It was lovely.

However, German is a tough ask. It’s a level two language, which means it requires more time for a native English speaker to master than French or Spanish or, curiously, Romanian. It is also rarely seen or heard in the United States. Unlike Spanish, and to some extent French, products and advertisements are rarely translated into German in the States.

New technology has made languages easier to learn, and so a few years ago, I felt my moment had arrived. Duolingo is a great way to start, and it’s free. I went entirely through the French version and am halfway through the Spanish course. I learned enough French with Duolingo to read passages and news stories, but my listening comprehension and ability to explain grammar are lacking. I still subscribe to French Facebook and Twitter feeds, which are great ways to incorporate the language into your life.

Babbel and Rosetta Stone now offer online courses with more grammar and culture coverage, and there is a trove of help available at Udemy, Coursera, and on YouTube. To take my Spanish to the next level, I subscribed to Babbel and will work my way through their Spanish course in the coming months. I have already secured a language buddy at work when my production ability improves.

While language learning is a life long goal, it is also what I plan to do in retirement. I’m 20 years from that day, but I have a plan. I’d like to help new arrivals to the U.S. learn English, and what better way to prepare than to learn Spanish now. Wish me luck.