Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Even More Random Stuff When I Should Be Writing Case Notes

Recently a friend posted in Facebook the query as to what others would do if they were given $50,000 and a year off work.  (I said: Research and margaritas.)  

And completely unrelatedly, I am currently reading The Multiplex Man.  The book's premise is a technology that can "implant" knowledge or skills from one person to another, which is (of course) being used by the military to create the perfect assassin.  He gets the wisdom of various individuals practiced in their skills for a lifetime.  I have been thinking about what I would want implanted (and it turned out that the assassin got a good number of the things I wanted, interestingly.)  

My list includes languages (German, Italian, French, Chinese, heck--Sanskrit and Russian, too--why not?); survival and traditional skills (woodcraft, plant identification, farming, fishing, weaving and sewing, carpentry, smithing, food preparation and preservation); athletics (swimming and diving, gymnastics, yoga, various martial arts, climbing, riding); shop skills (electronics, welding, motor repair); medical (assessment and treatment, medications, surgery) ...really, I can't stop thinking of things I'd want and just don't have enough lifetimes to learn them in.  Or in some cases, reasons to use them, unless society collapses, which honestly I've been imagining happening since my teen years.

I also think it'd be useful to extract the skills of a woman who'd given prepared childbirth birth several times under various circumstances.  Or breastfed several children etc.  Or somebody who'd memorized pi to a whole lot of digits...no, wait.  Maybe somebody who had photographic memory of something useful, like aquifer maps, or whatever you will.


So what would your response be to the time and money question, or else your most-wanted skills?  (And wouldn't it be cool to have all of that at once?)

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Mostly the same as yours, but I don't care a whole lot about weaving and sewing. Add violin playing!

Karen the Californian said...

You're on Facebook? Where??

I don't want to start thinking about the things I'd like to know how to do -- I've got too many, I wouldn't know where to start, and really don't want to think this deeply at 1:30am.

liz said...

Oh yeah, violin and piano. (You just didn't say piano because you can already play it.) And sharpshooting! And archery! Adobe construction! ...

I'm on...uh, the internet version? Where are you?

Karen the Californian said...

I tried to look for you on Facebook (the Internet version) and couldn't find you! Hrm... exactly how many spellings are there of your name?

liz said...

Ooh! Morse code! And maybe some other useful codes, whatever they might be.