Last week the wife and I took The Twins out on a whale-watching ferry ride out around the local harbor and the islands out in the Hauraki gulf.
One of the lesser-known advantages of Auckland, one of the main reasons I’ve stayed here so many years, is the many options for easy day trips out on the water. We’ve got a harbor-front downtown with easy access to a metric heap of tiny islands dotting the gulf, and that’s just for starters.
Within even an hour or two by car you can find yourself at world-class beaches, and only a few of them have attracted crowds.
Where I grew up, we were a good five-hour drive from the nearest coastline. Beautiful as it is (or used to be) down on the Florida panhandle’s Gulf coast, it’s a lot nicer to have it in your back yard.
I like being close to nature and the local wildlife, and I like being near the ocean. It helps that New Zealand has a temperate climate and no dangerous animals of any note, unlike my native South or the pitiless killzone that is Australia.
During the stop for lunch I snapped a few pictures of the nearly-empty bay, in the middle of winter on the clearest day you could ask for, and it hit me right then: this is why I live here. I never lived anywhere else that I could hop on a boat at 8:30 am and spend the middle of the day in this spot.
The sea-gods blessed us with sightings of two different pods of dolphins who played with the boat, a special guest appearance by a whale, and a coordinated air-strike by a flock of Australian gannets taking a cut from the dolphins’ hard-won fish feeding. I tell you that was a sight to see going down 30 feet in front of you.
All this was explained to us by a helpful crew of ocean-nerds who narrated the play by play.
On the way back, we had a stop at a remote winery on the remote side of a remote island, where we were served by one of those wine-nerds going on about apricots and hints of grilled pear and a light peppery finish without a cloying sweetness.
About all I can tell you about wine is “this tastes good” and “I don’t like it”.
I may be of high verbal intelligence, but my skills of vivid gustatory picture-painting meet their match here.
In fact the whole trip was a reminder that I like listening to nerds nerding out on whatever they find interesting. Wine nerds fill the slot nicely while also getting me boozed up.
I’m something of a nerd myself, so I get this impulse to nerd out. This comes with a powerful downside.
You can start to believe you have to be the King Nerd of everything if you want to do anything useful. It can even turn competitive. “If I can learn this, then surely I can be good at that, too.”
Of course you could. Going deep into a topic is its own kind of reward. But there is a catch. A single human lifetime may only have space for true depth in 2-3 areas, and that’s being generous.
Rather than trying to be good at everything and failing, there’s an elegance in the delegation of nerdery.
The jack of all trades is oftentimes better than a master of one, I hear.
I don’t need to familiarize myself with all the facts about the sea-life out in the harbor when good folks who specialize in that area can give me the guided tour as it is happening.
Ditto for the wine education. Not my area of specialty, but it’s fascinating to learn it from somebody who is excited and deeply interested in the topic.
Being excited about something is not at all “cringe” or whatever low-IQ goobers call it. Enthusiasm is badly underrated in our cultural climate of boredom. With only so much to go around, you’ve got to focus the energy where it can matter.
Do what excites you and lights you up and calls to you like a magnetic force-field. Leave the rest to the nerds who nerd out on their own calling.
This was hard for me to figure out as a naturally solitary do-it-myself type of personality. The more I understand about things, the more I see the value of the division of labor and of collaboration.
Nobody is that smart or that capable all by themselves. Because of the limitations of our minds, the quest to Know More often concludes with the counter-intuitive result of being a damn idiot.
Have you ever wondered why we have all the information in the world literally at our fingertips and most everyone seems dumber than ever?
I rest my case.
A mind can’t thrive by soaking up everything. Human minds thrive from selectivity and concentration.
Knowing less, of a higher quality, is where’s it at.
Matt Perryman
P.S. Y’all stay away from down here. I don’t need you blowing up my spots.