Quality or Quantity?

By Francis Marion of Highcountryblog.com

This will be a short post. It is a thought for discussion.

There are times when I feel and sense in others a growing dissatisfaction with the way things are.

The people I can feel it coming from the most are usually those closest to me. My kids for example. My son has been an honors student since elementary school and is now enrolled in the honors program in his high school. But I sense in him a deep unrest with the program.

The volume of homework he brings home is astounding. My university workload was less, though not considerably. His complaint being primarily that volume does not equate quality and the heaping on of what is essentially busy work, in his mind, is off the mark. I sense this is the crux of the problem with our society in general.

Most of our problems can be chalked up to volume over quality. Our relationships (see social media), sex, work, social programs and income. All of it.

We see the results of this line of thinking daily. In our economic models, in the rate of human migration required to sustain them and in our day to day living. We over schedule ourselves and our children, living on the assumption that if we don’t “do more” then we will have failed them and they will not become fulfilled, middle-class adults.

But I ask, with all the things we have, with all the things we do, are we fulfilled? A bigger house, more retirement benefits, more free health care, more toys, more friends, more sex (or what passes for it these days), more money (or what we think is money). Has any of it made us happier?

If the answer is no, then what are we training our children to become?

If we are teaching them quantity over quality, what are they learning? Consumption over production? Waste over conservation? Desire and petulance over patience and wisdom?

I can see where this is headed. You can see it. Today, I feel powerless to stop it. At times I am like a hamster trapped on a wheel. Spin the wheel or it will spin you.

I don’t want more. I want less. I want better.

-30-

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HollyO

“Most of our problems can be chalked up to volume over quality.”
+
“I don’t want more. I want less. I want better.”

Superb. Thank you for saying it so well.

Realist
Realist

The more you own, the more you are owned.

Mike Murray
Mike Murray

I was working two jobs when my wife gave me some of the best advice I ever got.
She asked me if I wanted my epitaph to be “I wish I spent more time at work”.
It made me realize there is only so much sand in the glass, and every grain should be worth something.
Money isn’t the only measure.

Norman Franklin

Francis, all good things to think about. I don’t know about the schools in Canada, however here in the U.S. it is atrocious. If we had it to do over again we would home school our kids. We are trying to convince the kids to home school the grandkids.

As to all the things that make life worthwhile you find after awhile that you don’t miss the big house and new cars and all the other stuff. We went from a gorgeous new 3200 square ft mcmansion to a drafty 50 year old 1600 ft block/rock house. The wife misses the convenience most of all. If we want something we have to travel 20 min to a town of 10,000 or an hour to a town of 50,000. It changes your perspective on modern convenance for sure.

The kids are just beginning to understand why we made the move and have stopped thinking we are just a couple of old fools. As to being fulfilled nothing gives me more satisfaction than walking along the creek with the grandkids, or just reading an old book on the deck as the sun goes down.

WIP
WIP

Me too. Although, I do want financial security. I don’t have that…yet.

JIMSKI
JIMSKI

My son dealt with homework issues his whole life. Even in Advanced Placement course the homework was just repetitive bullshit.
One problem he hated was English Lit in High School. They would read classic lit that were excellent books that had stood the test of time. Being a intelligent young man he would read such books in 2 days while the class would plod at a chapter every 3 days. By the time the book ended he had read a dozen other books and what Jonah tells the cook in the kitchen may have been a bit fuzzy.

And no the teacher would not just give him all the tests at the same time. Why, that would have made a student progress to fast………..

javelin
javelin

I will post a touch of personal history on the internet, something I am guarded against instinctively.

When I was in elementary school I had one of the most wonderful teachers. Before the days of pumping kids full of Ritalin or diagnosing every male child with vigor as “ADD”, my teacher would have myself and 2 other boys do calisthenics at the outset of class to ” burn off” some of our restlessness.
When given assignments, I would finish in a few minutes what was asked for the class to do in an allotted hour. Instead of allowing me to disrupt the other kids, the teacher gave me a list of all of the Caldecott Medal winning books and Newberry Award winning books. I was sent to the library and I worked my way through every single one on the list from Animal Farm to Ms Frisbee and the Rats of NIMH.
By 5th grade ( elementary was through 6th grade, Junior High 7th through 9th and High School 10th-12th) the elementary school had run out of math classes for myself and 2 Asian kids ( one from Taiwan and one Korean). In 5th and 6th grade my mother dropped me off at Junior High for my 1st period Algebra and Geometry classes and then a “small bus” would take us three to elementary school to finish the day with kids our age.
By my 11th grade year I had finished all of the classes high schools had to offer in math as Calculus was finished in 10th grade. Also in 11th grade I became seriously bored with it all as there simply was no challenge left.
I was stuck in “consumer math” with those who struggled wit simple percentages and decimals because it was the only math class I hadn’t taken and I had finished the Lit classes and creative writing classes so I found myself back in basic sentence structuring and grammar because my state requires 4 English credits to graduate ( one for each year 9th-12th.) We had no AP classes and high school gave no consideration for teaching those who were beyond the norms.
I grew so bored and disinterested that I almost flunked out by my final semester of HS and the GPA was abysmal.
College was not much more challenging as I got my first degree in biology with very minimal effort. I was not cocky or a showoff but still I understood why there was some latent resentment that I could ace a class with minimal effort when others had to study so hard. The hardest classes were those with tons of busy work as opposed to straight learning and practice in the lab. Papers, power points, presentations–much of it like cut and paste, whether electronic cutting for a projected display on a screen or literal cutting and pasting onto poster boards–yawn.
I have come to realize that I am naturally “busy.’ My wife says that I do not know how to “do nothing.” I try and adhere to my father’s admonitions of…..” if you start something, always finish it” and ” if you are going to do something, take the time and do it right.” However, whether a product of modern culture or just hard-wired this way, I ALWAYS have done volumes more than the average person I find out, when people are discussing their accomplishments from over the weekend.
I have to really try hard to slow down and do nothing–most often I fail as I find myself busy with something before I even realize it.
As it has been said, I have all of eternity to take it easy.

Uncola

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Beware the patient man.

Uncola

Or I think it might like this, but not totally:

BEAUTY

Beauty is a butterfly
Rarely captured,
Or made to subdue
Self-awareness identifies the quality
That consists in beauty
A passive observer must consciousness be
To realize beauty
As merely a reflection of truth
In a sense,
The breeze only a butterfly may see

THE SONG

It was a beautiful summer evening
The sun had just set beyond the horizon
And an array of rainbow-colored streaks of light
Were dancing,
In my car, wrapped around
Leather, plastic, steel and glass
You were quiet as we listened
To a song on the radio
It was a song we had never heard before
And we didn’t know it then
But we never were to hear it again

harry p.
harry p.

Move slow, kill fast

Be Prepared
Be Prepared

WIP…there’s no such thing as financial security when you don’t hold the ability to truly build and keep wealth except by the consent of others… “government”…. We all have to make the decision as to what our paths are, but it is important, as awaken people, to ask the vital question as to how we are being trapped by our own experiences, assumptions and beliefs. FM is saying less is more. Most of us won’t end up on the end of a dusty road with land and “currency” to sustain ourselves, but if buying less or more strategically allows us to worry less… spend less time on the wheel grinding… and invest more in our relationships with that time…then it’s a win. Toys don’t equal a win… :0)

Tommy's Evil Twin
Tommy's Evil Twin

I want more, then I want to lament over ‘the simple life’. As I ease into my Audi A8 and pull out of my how seven figures home, I want to ponder the better life I see when I go slumming in the downtown district….the hungry/starving artist thing – that’s living. Later, as I order my second $22 whiskey and attempt to connect with my ‘friends’ in the reserved hall in the back of the swankiest joint in town – we’ll all notice the dorky waiter and how surely he’s fucked for life, though he’ll likely develop a sense of self that we covet……..damn, outta booze…..waiter!

Tommy
Tommy

You’re an asshole…..

Kramdrof33
Kramdrof33

Great article and it is in fact an underlying problem to our current culture. We believe in things but cannot explain why. We use things and throw them away. We use people until we get what we want. We say whatever is necessary not what we truly feel because we do not know what we truly feel or why. Words have meaning but we no longer know what that is, so now they only have purpose. Everything is superficial and without deeper meaning which leaves us as merely superficial people. We are destroying our historical monuments. Why? Because we no longer fully understand the meaning of Robert E. Lee and we do not care… just make it superficially go away.
I used to struggle in Math all through grade school. No matter how many times we repeated it, I would soon forget how to get to the correct answer. I went to Technical School where I had to learn the application of algebra, geometry and trig… not just getting to the answer, but what it means each step along the way. I have never forgotten it since.
I believe in God and my Savior Jesus Christ, and I know WHY… I can defend my position. I know many professing atheists that cannot even begin to explain why they believe. This is new to Americans, and it is pathetically sad.
It is time we learn what we believe in and call on our kids, neighbors and everyone else to do their own research and know how to defend their positions.
Yes, your son is frustrated and may not be able to pin point exactly why. Tell him to spend some time quietly reflecting without distraction and he will find something amazing…. after all of this “teaching”, he does not know what he believes or why and this is not what we were designed for. He is longing for something more with a deeper knowledge. Encourage him to go find it. It will be most empowering.

i forget
i forget

Our society? Or just humanimalness? The trick bag contents are known by now by any interested to know. The rest will never know, or be convinced. 15-year old Al, 1894 Munich gymnasium (high school), wasn’t in a different time\place:

“He was informed by one of his teachers that he would never amount to anything, & he was subsequently forced or “politely encouraged” to leave the school, because he had shown his teachers disrespect & was viewed as a negative influence on other students. He would later call the gymnasium an “education machine,” by which he did not mean that it performed useful work, but rather that it belched out mind stifling pollution.” ~ snip from “The Upright Thinkers,” by Mlodinow

Fiatman60
Fiatman60

“He was informed by one of his teachers that he would never amount to anything”

Ya I had a few of those comments over the years in school….. I turned out alright, in some cases better than some of the straight “A”‘s

TJF
TJF

My 10th grade English teacher once told me in front of the whole class that I “would be lucky to pump gas” for my career. Now, it is true that I antagonized her a lot and was an asshole to her. She also told me that going to college to get a degree so one could get a good paying job was absurd. One should go to college to learn. She was full of terrible advice, but I guess that’s why the only job she could get was to teach children.

BB

Maybe this is the answer …You have made us for yourself,O
Lord ,and our heart is restless until it rest in you…Saint Augustine.

Fiatman ,maybe you will never amount to anything but for what it’s Worth …you still got Me. So be happy!?.

PlatoPlubius
Austrian Peter

My father advised: “Hasten slowly”. “Own a little, use a lot.” “I have no money, therefore I have no money worries”. If in business: “Do as the Jews do, if you’re going go, GO BIG – don’t go for a Grand, go for a Million”. “Don’t worry about it, the creditors are paying”. “If in doubt, have a fire. If you can’t sell the stock, set fire to it and claim on the insurance”.

On his death bed (he had had a wonderful and free life) he told me that he had nothing to leave me except his wisdom – it was the most valuable inheritance I could ever have wished for.

Bob
Bob

Excellent post, Francis. A very useful point of view to apply to life situations.

I offer another: Efficiency versus Effectiveness. Just like quality, effectiveness is difficult and elusive, while efficiency, like quantity, is a poor substitute.

mangledman
mangledman

Eat drink and be merry all the days of thy life, for that is your portion under the sun.

My father was a highly intelligent workaholic. Pride arrogance and shortcuts seemed to get in his way. He always took care of us, and his live for us is the biggest asset. He loved GOD, mom, and us, but it wasn’t always in that order, because hard work cures everything.

We will take nothing with us when we go. We can amass a fort,fortress,provisions, but even the mighty still posess some flaw.

If we went through this life with little, we have little to lose.

I went to college to have them tell me what I had to learn first, before I could study more. Being the rebellious chap that I am I went back to hard work.

Teach your children about love, simple things, and contentment. Family, honor, and charity. The things of the heart that they see from us is all that can give their children from us, except things.

Great article FM Keep your swords sharp, and powder dry

Austrian Peter

My father gave me much wisdom before he left for the great market in the sky. “Son,” he said; “Own little, use a lot” and so it was when he passed on, he had little but that which he had used and learned from, so much was the wisdom that he left me.

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