THE DOMESTICATED BACHELOR

by Jonathan B. Perry

In the previous step we discussed how being a Jack of All Trades plays well in the quest to become a Domesticated Bachelor, and possibly getting you on Jeopardy!.  It can be kind of fun fiddling around in all those different areas, having a good time, broadening your horizons, though only slightly because you have ADD.  But there comes a time for buckling down.  Hitting the bricks.  Getting serious.  Beyond being a Jack of All Trades is becoming a Master of Something.  If you really spend the time and hone your skills for your own personal satisfaction, and because I told you to, you‘ll find yourself mastering wonderful things and even yourself.  I totally just sounded like a bad self-help book.  Hoarding knowledge is swell!

Master something by getting a Master’s Degree!  See how that worked?  Mastery through a Master’s.  The lower level degree is, of course, the Bachelor’s Degree.  Yeah, it’s only a little insulting.  There’s not even a Bachelorette’s Degree, let alone a Spinster’s Certification (there actually might be for people who use spindles).  Anyway, you don’t necessarily need a degree to be masterful and full of mastery.  Boy Scouts get patches all the time for honing their camping and Greco-Roman wrestling in the woods skills.  You might enjoy practicing your mastered specialty as a trade, like popsicle stick cuckoo clock making or faux llama sweater knitting.  Open a shop…in Estes Park.  Hire some good-looking shopkeepers.  Date them.  Be sued for harassment.  File bankruptcy.  Retrain.  Master something else.

If you’re already fairly good at woodworking, improve your skills by taking night classes in ironic bookcase building while dressed as Zorro (he makes the sign of disease).  Becoming an expert in a subject is

My brother Jay used to make God's Eyes

rewarding, apparently (not that I would know).  If you’ve hoarded a lot of knowledge about a subject, you can discuss it at length in an interesting way and people might want to hear what you have to say or ask your advice about it.  Or they might stone you, so you may need to know when to hold your tongue, in which case speech or dodgeball classes might come in handy.  Or if you make things, you might make special gifts for others, to buy them off:  chain mail or God’s Eyes.  Even build brick furniture or a ship’s deck for your patio.  Or a tree house.  Ooh, a tree house!

So, go master something.  Or not.

Read the first 6 steps:

#6. Be a Jack of All Trades

#5. Travel the World

#4. Learn to Cook

#3. Shape Up, Fatty

#2. The Right Wardrobe

#1. THE BACHELOR PAD

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