What is Real?

Everyone defines reality a little differently. However, I was very lucky to have a father who was an electrician so at least I knew from working with him what might kill me in a very real and present way.

for example, as a 12 year old I learned not to wear any rings while working as an electrician because electrical shorts would burn off any finger wearing a ring. So, if you wonder why electricians don't wear wedding rings at work it's because they don't want their fingers burnt off.

And beyond that if you wear a gold necklace that is not only finger losing like a ring it is fatal if you get a short through your necklace because that will kill you even with 110 volts. Another thing is that you can't use Aluminum ladders only fiberglass ones or wooden ones. Why? Because an aluminum ladder if a short goes through it will kill you.

So, I learned it's a lot like driving a car or truck. If you don't know certain things those things will almost certainly kill you.

So, I'm grateful I learned all these things so I'm still alive now because it got to me think very pragmatically like an engineer.

If you go through life just as an idealist and not a pragmatist often you are dead by 20 or 30 because you don't have practical experience in staying alive in different situations.

The point is that if I hadn't been trained to think this way when life got really hard in my early 20s for me to choose to be alive it's possible I wouldn't be alive now. Why?

Because if you haven't had to deal with real things in your childhood how can you be expected to deal with real things in adulthood either.

So, whooping cough, blunt trauma childhood epilepsy, learning to be an electrician summers from age 12 to 17 with my father, all these things taught me that life is difficult but survivable if you know the right things. Driving a car is survivable, riding a motorcycle is survivable, flying a plane or glider is survivable if you know the right things to ask and to think about so you don't die.

So, this engineering way I was taught to think about everything physical allowed me to survive my 20s and other times when life wasn't easy because I always had pragmatism and an engineering logical way to look at things so I didn't succomb to fantasy ways of thinking that often get people killed when they least expect it like wearing headphones or looking at their smartphone while they walk in front of a bus or truck that mows them down.

I remember that my father and grandfather often scared me in the ways that they thought and acted when I was a child. However, as a young adult and adult I realized this bravado and intensity also saved my life over and over again. People just got out of my way a lot because I was 6 foot 5 inches tall and if I had enough attitude I could and did accomplish anything just like my Dad and Grandad.

A lot of it was just the "Get out of my way I'm getting things done"  attitude that was everything I found especially in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s when if you weren't that way you couldn't accomplish anything. In some ways it is still that way even today in 2020.