21 thoughts on “Chapter 3: And a Stick to Beat the Devil With, page 23”

  1. Pippi, being on one of those god-awful shows? That is NOT a lofty goal. Working pit-deep in human sewage every day for the rest of your life is much more respectable.
    (I’m ROFLing in spite of all this, just so you know.)

  2. I actually do agree with her, on all counts.

    The only problem is unless you have a remarkable and eminently marketable talent, and the dedication to work at it from outside the system, school is where it’s going to be at for you.

  3. I really agree with her here. School’s not essential, although I understand it’s harder to get by without it if you live in the States. The problem is just the idea that educational degrees are necessary to a high quality of life and the people that perpetuate it.

  4. It’s true. You’re supposed to pursue a higher education and a high-end job to pay for expensive toys and perpetuate a culture obsessed with money, but you can do without all that and probably have a more interesting and fulfilling life. There’s all manner of channels to educate yourself outwith the system, and it’ll help you really learn shit instead of cramming your head full of perishable data only useful to pass a grade.

    But I can’t help feeling Pippi is somehow subtly missing the point.

  5. She’s probably enlightened.

    She doesn’t want any of those things and she doesn’t want school, therefore, she doesn’t want anything because then she’ll eventually either want something else, or get miserable.

    If she was a Buddhist like Scip, she would already be past enlightenment

    1. but she still wants a laptop to see her favourite shows, and a flat to live in and Scipio bringing money and food….
      so she does not want to live outside the system, she just doesn’t want to make any effort.
      ( yes, I really dislike her, but just because she is stupid)

  6. I disagree. The way I see it, school isn’t about working so you can get a high paying job. It is about the pursuit of knowledge. You can find knowledge in places besides school and college, of course, but you can’t write off those places as unimportant. “Never let your schooling interfere with your education.” Right, I love this quote, but school is still very important. The way I see it, school educates you, but it can’t make you wise.

    Just my two cents.

  7. I’m just enjoying watching Scip having to deal with the fact that now that the kid is thinking for herself, just like he wanted her to, she’s really, honest-to-god thinking…*for herself*.

    Careful what you wish for, h-uh?

  8. Uh, you DO want food, right? Because, no work, no pay, no food.
    Unless you’re a moocher or a beggar or something.

  9. The trades are an alley of employment that is currently not even mentioned in school. In fact, most avenues of progression financially are not mentioned in schools. And frankly, given her apparent intellect, the best thing she can do is start working. There won’t be any progression, but school is clearly wasted time in this case.

  10. If you don’t finish school, you work harder for less money than if you do finish school and get into a trade or get an Associates degree. Work is going to be hard anyway, but at least you aren’t working 9-5 at McD’s for minimum wage the rest of your life.

  11. Trouble is the minimum education for anyone to take you seriously is constantly increasing. You need a GED/High School Diploma. You need an Associates. You need a Bachelors. It won’t be long till you need a Masters or a Doctorate in anything to be worth a damn, and in a few works that is true. And schooling is sometimes so detrimental to the pursuit of knowledge because they never let you live what you are learning only study it, so you get burnt out on the subject and end up jaded and destroyed by the time you make it to the job you spent half your life trying to get.

    So fuck school, I just want to be something, and I’d rather we go back to when I could apprentice to someone till I became a master than deal with this shit. But I’ll still deal with this shit.

    1. ditto that. screw working for years and going into more years’ worth of debt for a piece of paper. it’s the law of the states, but i’m right there with you on apprenticeship. i’ll trade an art degree for studying with a master for employable skills anyday.

      except the US is a service-based economy. and industrialization and mass-market production means that nobody wants a blacksmith or a portrait painter or a seamstress (unless you work for weddings, ugh) anymore. :(

  12. In my experience, someone’s ‘apparent intellect’ has got remarkably little to do with their (non-verbal) ability. I know brilliant chemists who can’t get through three words without using ‘like’, and people who can’t string together an argument to save their life but just -get- machines on some intuitive level I can’t imagine.

    1. On the flip side of that, I’m apparently eloquent enough to give most anyone I speak with (on a topic of substance) the impression that I’m brilliant, but I flunked right out of college. Pretty hard. It’s frustrating, actually, because it seems to convince them all I’m smart and just lazy, rather than good with words and not much else.

  13. Well, with the advent of the internet, depending on your personality and artistic creativity and talent, you can do “work” that you enjoy and make enough money to make a bit of a quasi-living. More than that is difficult.

  14. What I love most about this page is Scip can’t possibly argue with her reasoning without betraying his own beliefs. “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.”

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