Difficulty
February 3rd, 2007
I struggled reading Shakespeare in high-school. We’d have to read a few scenes a day, completing a work in maybe 2 to 3 weeks.
At university, though, a professor noted that a group of 20 people can somehow manage to perform something like King Lear in under 3 hours, including costume changes, dramatic emoting, and an intermission. Why the hell couldn’t we read the same words in the same amount of time?
I struggled because it was Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is supposed to be a high-brow struggle to read. But this observation by this professor completely changed my viewpoint.
Everyday we make choices based upon the perceived difficulty of a task. But every day, those perceptions can and should change.
There was a time that pumping gas was considered too difficult for most people to handle, so we had gas station attendants taking care of that duty. I think most people manage to fill their own tanks these days just fine.
What other opportunities to change the “difficult” into the “easy” exist today?
February 4th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I didn’t think shakespeare was mean’t to be high brow for its time? certainly the subject matter appears more akin to a hollywood blockbuster then a arthouse flick (to use a modern analogy).
Incest, murder, insanity, regicide - quality stuff !
February 14th, 2007 at 7:57 am
There was a time that pumping gas was considered too difficult for most people to handle, so we had gas station attendants taking care of that duty. I think most people manage to fill their own tanks these days just fine.
Except those poor suckers in Oregon and New Jersey, where the state has determined that it’s just too dangerous for you to do it yourself.
http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/bans-gas-pumping.html