Specialization Is For Insects

h/t Tam

Forget anything?

Like waves in ponds, knowledge ripples outwards slowly.
As Tam notes on her blog:

 "People are stupid about non-shooting classes. For a long time I’ve been comfortable bagging on folks who have 200 hours in a plate carrier with a carbine and not eight hours drawing a 19 from concealment, but I need to start bagging on people with 200 hours of running a 19 from concealment and not eight hours of legal/med/retention/defensive driving/intermediate force... 

Congrats. You’re trained like Joe SOCOM in the skills you’re least likely to need..."

What's important is everything. EVERYTHING.

You don't know what's not  important, but rest assured you'll figure that out in a hurry five seconds after you realize you didn't learn it, or pay attention when you had the chance.

I had a Teamster on a movie set bitch once about the number of components of my medical kit. As a rule, I don't backtalk Teamsters (it's not a good idea), but this was a rare exception:

"Well, Sport, if you can tell me right now which parts of this medical kit I won't need today, in advance, for anyone on the crew, you just let me know and I'll trot it back to my truck and leave it behind..."

That was the last I heard about that.

Preparedness is like that. You don't know what you need, so you better bring it all, everyday.

Murphy is a m*****f***** about letting you know when you've forgotten something.

I've spent most of my life as the "What if" guy, both from a few "O Sh*t!" moments I or someone else has had, and from decades of personal predilection and professional diligence.

The time to discover your missing parachute is always before you exit the aircraft.

Some mistakes in life you only get to make once...

So you have to be a generalist, not a specialist, and think about the 57 things most people forget, unless you're trusting to fate, deity, or blind drunk luck to save your bacon when that thing you never thought about comes calling.

Trusting to the above gets you lots of good stories, scars and casts, and if you're really, really lucky, the rest of a life to tell stories about them.

If not, you get nominated for a Darwin Award.
(And I've sent in a few of those nominations for others, myself. Such talent as offing yourself through sheer stupidity should be suitably noted and rewarded.)

Thinking ahead, and doing something about it, gets you a long boring life, and the ability to laugh about the dumb@$$ people who deserve and earn Darwin Awards.

Choose wisely.