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9/3/2019
Bubbles
By: Colin Bonini
Colin’s Blog: thegoodfolks.org
Bubbles. They’re meant for popping.
In Wander Purposefully, Eric gives insight into the bubble he was brought up in: a male-dominated, upper-middle class, sports-driven, white household in Orange County. He would call it a bay: pure saltwater, one perspective. But throughout his life, at first through experiences forced on him by his parents (joining the choir), and later through his own efforts (hiking the PCT; hanging a world map in his shower; Absorbent Learning in general) his bay turned to an estuary: a body of mixed salt and fresh water. He became educated across new subjects, perspectives, and beliefs. His bubble popped, to his and the worlds’ benefit. Wander Purposefully, then, is not only about how to make the most of life’s “white spaces” using Absorbent Learning, but is the story of how Eric’s bubble burst. This would not have happened had he not utilized all three kinds of Absorbent Learning: Auditory, Visual, and Experiential. Now, I don’t have any sort of PhD – self granted or otherwise – and strongly suggest that you listen to the book for the full benefits of Eric’s approach to life. But I can at least attest to my own experiences thus far, which have largely been shaped by what Eric categorizes as Experiential Absorbent Learning.
In many ways, I’m Eric-point-O. Our bubbles are remarkably similar; both upper-middle class white males from Catholic families in California with interests in sports, backgrounds on stage (I was in over 20 musicals before I turned 13 – unlike Eric, my voice never improved), and blessed with the resources to travel and attend school. It’s a testament to homophily that we met as rugby players at Gonzaga University during Eric’s final year. It is, to say the least, a comfortable bubble. One that littered my trajectory with opportunities and unrivaled comforts.
But, due to the same form of cognitive dissonance Eric experienced, I felt like I had to somehow atone for the luxuries that effortlessly fell into my life as a result of other peoples’ dedication. Although, I admit, an egotistical and privileged mindset, this became a driving force in my life. I wanted to reap the benefits of my upbringing while simultaneously learning the value of hard work, forced independence, and self-reliance.
So, I hurled myself into needlessly uncomfortable situations. At university I overbooked myself with extracurriculars, maximum course loads, and work outside of school. After graduating I spent a summer working on the loading docks of a salmon processing plant in Alaska. Then I used the money to buy a one-way ticket to Australia. It’s this last point that Eric has asked me to write about. In particular, a solitary six-week excursion I spent driving from Perth, in Western Australia, to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, a total of just over 6,000km (about 3,700mi) in a rented camper-van. In terms of my life, this experience most closely mirrors Eric’s own tackling of the PCT. An excessively long road trip, living in a car, and traveling Australia were all very high on my bucket list and required me to leave my routine and my comfort zone far behind. I even took a lead from Eric and spent the time to knock off another bucket list item by listening to Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables on Audible throughout the journey. It was, in many ways, a life-altering trip.
However, when I think about the purpose of Experiential Learning – to become versed in new perspectives, to empathize with people from different walks of life, to pop the bubble – it’s clear to me that this trip isn’t the best example. Yes, I learned a lot about myself. But most of the people I met on the road were of a mold. Extreme travelers have a tendency to be generously liberal and open-minded. Many of them (at least of the ones I’ve met) come from similarly affluent and educated backgrounds. And, while I did meet a few eccentric Australians who dedicated their lives to living in the bush, most of the people I encountered were backpackers on gap year. The same as me.
Rather, the most clear instances of Experiential Learning in my life come not from this journey, but from the means to meet the end: work.
For instance, my first job was at a local sandwich shop. I worked side by side with “A” – an ex-convict who had recently been released from prison on a domestic violence charge. He had family ties to both active gang members and death-row inmates and would occasionally enlighten me with stories of helping his cousins hide assault rifles during police raids. Once, after I bumped his arm in passing one too many times, he told me, “You don’t stop that, we’re gonna have problems,” while holding the serrated knife we used to slice bread.
Although not an ideal coworker, spending so much time with A gave me insight to an entirely different view of life. One I didn’t agree with, but nonetheless existed, and was important for me to understand.
The trend continued. My final year at school I ended up working in the kitchen of the local pub. Although having a few years of experience as a waiter, I’d never worked in a kitchen before. My introduction to the Back of House world, where thick skin and gritted teeth can count just as much as know-how, is best summed up by the only question I was asked during my interview:
“How’s your sense of humor?”
I learned more than how to grill burgers and take a joke while I worked there. David, the coworker I grew closest to, taught me more than I ever expected. Although one of the kindest and most good-hearted people I know, I learned that his past was one full of violence, addiction, and other broadly illicit activities that landed him in prison more than once. He told me many times, “I used to be a really, really shitty person.”
When I met him he was at the tail end of turning his life around. He’d sobered up, was finishing up trade school to become a welder, and was a dedicated father to his two children. But suddenly, just after the death of one of his lifelong friends, he discovered his girlfriend, the mother of his children, was seeing another man behind his back. He chopped vegetables for entire shifts, the knife hitting the chopping block harder than usual. His social media flooded with alarming rants and depressive imagery. He showed up to work with a new set of forehead tattoos – a skull, an anvil, and his son’s name, AVERY, on prominent display. And on Friday and Saturday nights, after the locals cleared out and the bar filled with students, the kitchen window became more than the food pass. It was a barrier.
On one side I watched my friends getting drunk, letting loose after a week of losing sleep over assignments and exams. But in the kitchen, sweating behind the grill and ignoring burns from flying specks of oil, the stakes were higher. David was a friend entirely different than my university crowd, and it was plain that he was on the edge. That he was steps away from plunging back into a dangerous place he had fought to climb out of.
But he kept opting for ginger beer and cigarettes over the hard stuff, and he stayed straight. Now he’s a licensed metal worker, and he and his girlfriend are back together, raising their children.
My time in that kitchen – both with David and the job itself – were quintessential examples of Experiential Absorbent Learning. The work taught me new skills and tested my work ethic, and the friendship I built with David completely rewired my perceptions of how people can change. and the value of endurance. But it all began by stepping out of my comfort zone and committing to a job I knew nothing about. The foundational approach to Experiential Absorbent Learning.
And this was only one story of the relationships I’ve built and the lessons I’ve learned through throwing comfort to the wind. Some more examples from my Experiential Learning resumé are:
Being berated by an ex-military Italian man about proper freezer maintenance during a storm in Alaska.
Crawling through elevator shafts with a Nepalese dishwasher while being screamed at by chefs in three different languages – Japanese, Italian, and Hindi – all calling for different foods during a 200pax brunch rush.
Being offered a job in New Zealand for telling a bad joke.
Paddling in from overhead surf after fracturing my ribs in the water.
Driving across three Australian states in a campervan.
Working as a sandwich hand, waiter, barback, late-night delivery driver, line cook, commis chef, newspaper editor, and dockworker.
Living in a foreign country.
Serving lunch to a retired Australian drug mogul.
Cooking breakfast for Hugh Jackman (kind of; he ate breakfast where I worked as prep chef, meaning whatever he ate I was in some degree responsible for).
Pet a wild kangaroo.
Eric was inspired to write Wander Purposefully because he believes that Absorbent Learning is a life-changing tool everyone can benefit from. Based on my own experiences, I agree wholeheartedly. Nothing on the list above would have come into fruition had I not first left the comfort of my bubble and branched out from the routines my life revolved around. And, as Eric explains in the book, having such a good repertoire of stories and connections not only makes me seem cooler than I really am, but makes it easier to build lasting, meaningful relationships with a broader range of people.
I have friends from America, Italy, England, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea, Nepal, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Canada, Mexico, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Ireland, Serbia, Spain, Vietnam, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. They are restaurant managers, chefs, waiters, construction workers, bank executives, ex-convicts, journalists, creatives, pilots, and entrepreneurs. Some are recovered, others are still addicts and alcoholics. They are all teachers, and I’m indebted both to them and to the experiences we’ve shared.
But I was born lucky. I was able to attend university and earn a degree, and after graduating didn’t have any obligations to stick around. Many of the connections I’ve made, and the stories I’ve acquired, come from this freedom. Moving across the world isn’t something most people can do so easily. And while travel is valuable, especially when it comes to Experiential Absorbent Learning, it’s also a luxury.
But that’s the great thing about Experiential Absorbent Learning. It’s not something that only exists in far away places. Every day we brush shoulders with people from different worlds, sit on the thresholds of unexplored terrain. Really, it’s just a matter of one word or one step before we’re trapped in a conversation that changes our life or exploring a new area that could become a second home. I can attest to this, learning just as much in the kitchen of a homey Spokane pub as I did in the barren outback of South Australia.
Everybody’s comfort zone has different limits. Everybody’s bubble floats separately. But the more we step outside and embrace the concept of Experiential Absorbent Learning, the larger our bubble gets. It grows bigger and bigger, taking in more and more. Then, it eventually pops. And, after all, that’s the fun part.