A Valuable Skill

“All of a sudden the things that the old-line law firms didn’t want to do – hostile takeovers and litigation – were the things that every law firm wanted to do. And who was the expert in these two suddenly critical areas of law? The once marginal, second-tier law firms started by the people who couldn’t get the job at the downtown firms ten and fifteen years earlier.”

The world is constantly changing, and those who are the most prepared are going to be the same people who are successful when it happens. In this case, all the lawyers who weren’t good enough for the big law firms, started their own law firms and worked on things the others didn’t want to do. When the business industry changed course, the law firms who were handling the unwanted leftovers from before, automatically were ahead of the game. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure - In this case, that junk that the first man did not want, happened to be a gold mine when the opportunity to use it became valuable. The lawyers that had been working at the law firm for years had actually been perfecting a skill that would create future opportunity for them, and they weren’t even aware that it would one day be valuable – no one was. The theory that opportunity at a specific time, to hard working people (who are not looking for it), seems to be reoccurring throughout the book. We see it in computer programmers such as Bill Gates and Bill Joy; both of them went into an obscure field without any major success in mind.

How to be an Expert

“He wanted to learn. That was a big part of it. But before he could become an expert, someone had to give him the opportunity to learn how to be an expert.”

This quote got my attention because it summarized the author’s thoughts throughout the first couple chapters in a simple sentence. The quote is talking about Bill Joy, a brilliant computer programmer who worked hard and was rewarded with amazing opportunities. One of the major concepts of beginning of the book is opportunity, and how if you had good opportunities throughout your life, there is a high chance you will end up to be successful. Wanting to learn is also very important, generally people who want to learn work hard at what they’re doing, and the amount of work they have accumulated over the years brings them closer to what researcher call the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.

Framework to literature

In chapter two of The Educated Imagination, Frye expresses his opinion about the framework of all literature. “This story of loss and regaining of identity is, I think, the framework of all literature.” (pg.30) Frye’s opinion is intriguing and definitely has some truth to it, although no all literature shows it in the same ways. If you look at any piece of work my thought is that you will find a loss and regaining of identity depending on how in depth you look at it. This situation then leads to the emotional conflicts, and plot of the story.

Assignment 1

“One person by himself s not a complete human being…”

I think Frye is talking about how one human being on his own can never be complete because the person would not advance very far without other humans input and opinions. My opinion is that his words say it like it is. The impact of literature, society and judgment can be a major influence and define lives. The quote can be connected to literature and human communication. When we read the book stimulates our brains and could impose a greater depth of thinking on the person reading. The literature being read could ask fundamental questions and implant new thoughts into the mind that may never have been established without it. Literature, being written by another human, is an expression of creativity, and or detailed ideas about a subject and it brings in a new perspective and multiple bias thoughts which prod the mind further than possible while independent. This quote has a direct connection to paragraph 24 in “The Love of Learning”; “Make use of the public libraries. Start you own personal library and watch it grow. Talk about your reading. Ask others what they’re reading. You’ll learn a lot.” Undoubtedly this quotation sums up the whole message being portrayed by Frye. Reading and communication with other human sources is one of the most influential learning methods in the world, and makes us closer to being complete as humans.